"No noble and exalted life exists... without knowledge of devils and demons, and without continual struggle against them." Joseph Knecht
-- The Glass Bead Game, p 261, Hermann Hesse
A.D. 3125
ISHTAR TERRAH, VENUS, SOL SYSTEM, 1337-B
Sakura, of late, seldom had cause to find herself on Venus. Truth be told, the planet had long ago ceased to be "home" for her; nowadays, it was where the rulers of the world could be located, and (not so coincidentally) she could generally find her mother and father. Home was her TARDIS, or if she stretched the idea, it was found in the beauty of Crystal Tokyo or the chaotic serenity of the early twenty-first century. As a Time Lord, she didn't feel much in the desire to put down roots and settle; Venus was merely the place she was raised on when she wasn't on the TARDIS.
She wouldn't have come back if she hadn't had a hunch about something happening here. It was only a hunch, but she had learned to trust to her hunches. They came only every so often, but they panned out more often than not. So, to that effect, she had followed it to one of rei.bot's former haunts: the Shinzumaki monastery, a branch of the Order of Ten Thousand Temples.
The Order was a contemplative group of Zen Shinto monks who had decided some five hundred years ago to seek enlightenment in the depths of space. Sakura had been to this place a few times before as a child, and had not found much of it to be interesting. When she was younger, she was too young to understand, and then too young to want, the peace that this sort of environment sought to achieve. Now, though, she almost wished she could set some time aside to try to find a little bit of nirvana.
If the monks of the Order recognized who she was, they did not make much fuss about it. They were content to let her be, as was she for them. It promoted peace on both sides, and their mutual attunement to this serenity was what tipped her off to the arrival of another stranger.
Sakura turned about slowly, watching the familiar grey, red, and brown colors of an old acquaintence-- for Yaijinden was acquaintence to many, and comrade to very, very few-- make his way down the footpath. She had chosen to wait in the monastery garden, surrounded by the trappings of an old life long left behind, and spent the last few moments before he arrived watching her namesake tree swaying in the wind.
When he was a respectful distance way, Yaijinden did not waste time. "I want--" he began, stopped, then continued, "No, I need a favor."
Sakura lifted her eyes to the heartless shell standing before her, and suddenly recognized the change in Yaijinden. She had known him to be sober just as fleetingly as he had been manic and angry, but there was something off about this calm...
...that was it. He was actually making himself calm. She could recognize the measured breaths he was taking-- three seconds in, three seconds out-- and there was a waver in his voice that she had never known him to possess in the entirety that she had known him.
Rather than call him on it immediately, though, she decided to pursue it more subtly. "So that's why you came at a convenient time," Sakura said dryly. "I should have guessed that you wouldn't show your stubbly smirk around here unless there was something you sincerely couldn't procure with your personal power."
Yaijinden took a long, measured sigh in response to her rampant alliteration. "There's something big coming up," he said. "Something really big."
"Something big is always happening, my maddened maniacal mentor," she responded coyly. "You said it yourself: 'There's always someone dying somewhere.'"
"This is bigger than some mortal drama," he snapped, face hardening into a scowl. "And you know it's about to go down. You've probably already experienced it on this timeline, too."
"That so, hmm?" Sakura flashed him a small smile, simultaneously amused that she was on the needling end and somewhat concerned that he wasn't responding in kind. "What gives you that impression?" she added, one eyebrow raised above her smirk.
"I can see it in your eyes," he answered tonelessly, looking away from her. "Sometimes, back in Azabu-Juuban, I could see the suffering you've undergone. The part of your soul that you keep under wraps, like your mother always did. The part of your spirit that's been rubbed raw with the pain, but that gleams all the more brightly for the polishing..."
The humor had faded from her eyes as he trailed off. She gave him another long look, watching his ragged breath slowly reassert itself into a vaguely calm pattern once again. "The next big crisis," she observed with a small, unhappy smile. "Yes, I know. What of it?"
"People..." He looked to her again before turning around to face away. "People like me don't rate very highly on the cosmic totem pole," Yaijinden said slowly. "We qualify as supernatural powers because of what's been done to us, but part of that elevation comes with a binding of our will. There are rules you have to abide by, things that you cannot avoid-- geasa, if you want to call it. Power and responsibility go hand in hand. The lower powers don't have much to abide by, but once those rules come into conflict with your established habits..."
The words hung in the garden for a long moment, punctuated only by the click of a bamboo water pipe against stone. "I don't think I ever directly told you about the cosmic realities of being heartless," he continued, his thoughts gathered once again. "For the most part, you don't even notice that it's gone. The higher emotions are gone, just like they had never been there in the first place. A lot of people in my position are consumed by that freedom, letting their personalities be swallowed up by their id. I've come close, every so often, to just dropping anything human that was left of me and be carried away by the tides. But, in the end, I can't. Not because I don't know how, or because it would be hard... but because it would be a lie."
Sakura moved a few steps closer, her head tilted a bit to the side. She did not say anything, though; he was obviously not done talking, and lifetimes of experience had taught her when to listen. After a time, he flopped down on his back unceremoniously, disturbing the patterns on the path, and focused his gaze on the sky. "It's easy to forget your limitations when you're free of them," Yaijinden added. "It's easier still to forget that these limitations aren't guaranteed. I'm only this way as long as my heart is far away from me, and only as long nobody thinks to hold it... and subsequently, hold my the very essence of my being in their hands." He paused, throwing a fleeting glance to Sakura before fixing his eyes back on the sky. "You've lost... many things, by this time in your life. Many people, many loved ones, friends, enemies, all of that. You couldn't take them back if you wanted to... but if you could-- if you could get them back..."
The unspoken question was a loaded one, one he had been very fond of asking when they were both younger. "My answer is the same," Sakura remarked, somewhat detatchedly. "The past is done and buried, and there are times when it is better left unearthed."
"And that," he murmured, "is the core of my issue. If you get those people back, you have to un-lose them. And after you're done un-losing them, you have to lose them again, later... and just because you've lost someone once doesn't mean it's any easier the second time around."
"I presume," she responded, a small smile crossing her face, "that you are drawing this parallel as a way of illustrate the reason you came to see me."
Yaijinden remained silent, apparently bringing the words together again. "I can feel it," he said suddenly. "I can feel everything that I am being rolled around in some Thing's hands. I can feel it scrutinizing me, hating the parts of my soul that it can't understand, but resolving to use me as a weapon anyway, and I can't do a thing to stop it. When it calls to me, I will lock step with every other tool at its disposal. And when the war is won, whether this Thing wins or it loses, I will be in a position to get my heart back."
"This is not a good thing, then?" she inquired evenly.
"When a khadi is in proximity to his heart, a phenomena known as 'bleed' occurs," Yaijinden explained, another sigh escaping his lungs. "The heart reaches out for the khadi, and the khadi perceives this stretch as flashes of emotion. Memories, of the times before one underwent the cardiectomy, and panges of conscience that are almost unbearable to have. This wholeness gives us access to the fullness of our power, but more often than not, that power comes with a terrible burden... self-awareness."
"I would hardly call you not self-aware," Sakura demured, a small frown on her face. "If I may be so blunt, I don't think you're afraid of becoming self-aware. I think you're afraid of your conscience."
"It's NOT-- it's not..."
The vehemence of his retort disappeared just as quickly as it came into being. Yaijinden took a deep breath and composed himself once again. "I was told I would not have to regret anything, ever again," he said plainly, speaking slowly to keep it level. "That was the price I paid to rise above the person I once was. The trade, though, means that my agreement with my former holder is now effectively null and void. The thing that holds me now is not bound by contract to keep me away from my power. In fact, it will probably make sure I use it.
"The war will be won by the good guys, of course," the khadi added, smiling bitterly. "I know this much from history. The universe favors the little people in this sort of struggle, and Gods know the little people of this day and age are willing to fight until the end."
"Confident in your observations, aren't you?" Sakura observed with a momentary smirk.
He laughed for a moment, but the effort came out as a hollow one. "That's not the point," Yaijinden answered, shaking his head. "I'm not afraid of you guys losing. If you do lose, then I'll change my plans, but I don't see it coming. It's unlikely. It's not even your victory that concerns me really-- it's what happens to me after you all win."
Another absence of sound stretched out between them. "The consequences of victory, should your side win the coming war," he said, sitting up and repositioning himself to face her, "is that I will no longer have someone to keep my heart away from me. I was never much for self-control in the days before, you know... and if I'm taking hints from my old soul, I may forget it when the time comes. I fear that I will forget myself, and that the person who I am now will be consumed by the person I used to be."
"Since I don't get to play devil's advocate very often," Sakura replied, "maybe you can clue me in. What's so wrong with that?"
Yaijinden's eyes fell to the ground for a long moment. "That man-- no, that BOY-- is dead. He died a thousand years ago, and quite frankly, I think the dead should be left to rest."
A half-smile crossed her lips. "That's not the attitude I've heard before."
"So I'm a hypocrite," he snarled back, shooting her a glare. "I never claimed I wasn't!"
"Easy there, killer." Sakura squatted down, lowering herself to roughly eye-level with Yaijinden. "Allow me to guess your desire, then," she said, voice softening. "In the event that you are freed by the thing that holds your heart, you want me, or someone else, to make sure that you don't try something silly."
"In a nutshell, yes."
"And, if I might ask, what possessed you to preface this proposal with the preponderous backstory you provided me?"
"It's... an old habit." His face fell. "Very, very old. One I had thought myself rid of."
"Mmm." She rocked backwards and came to a sitting position, legs pulled up against her chest. "And why didn't you ask an earlier me to do this for you?" Sakura inquired, curious.
"Because the other you will be very busy, very shortly," Yaijinden replied, smiling back at her-- and there, in the schadenfreudian amusement in that smile, was the Yaijinden she remembered. "I wouldn't want to burden the coming you with one more worry," he added laconically. "You'll have enough on your mind soon enough, as I'm sure you're already aware."
"How overwhelmingly kind of you," she said dryly.
"So, what do you say?"
Sakura leaned back and pursed her lips in thought. "I think," she announced, "that I will reflect on this revelation, and subsequently supply my response at the right time. No sooner, no later."
"Ugh." Yaijinden rolled his eyes. "Of all the cryptic replies, I had to get THAT one..."
Her lips parted in a brief smile. "You expected anything else?" she said enigmatically.
"No, not really." In a fluid motion, Yaijinden kicked off the ground into a standing position. "I'm not sure why I was surprised at all, really," he admitted, turning his eyes to the sky. "I think I already knew what your answer would be. Maybe I just had to hear it for myself."
"Maybe," Sakura agreed, pushing herself upright. "Was there anything else?"
"No, not really." The khadi shrugged. "You'll forgive me if I'm not in a mood to go through the motions of reminiscing."
She nodded briefly and returned to her previous contemplations. Yaijinden took that as the signal to leave; his presence was gone as quickly as it had come, and the monastery slowly began to regain the passive equilibrium it had possessed minutes before. Sakura permitted herself a small smile, briefly reflecting on events many years in her past. The irony of his coming and his question was not lost on her.
The decision he was asking her to make had never been in her hands in the first place.
Still, she would linger here a moment. It was good to get in touch with the person she had been, every so often. Perhaps, if things turned out as she remembered, Yaijinden would find that out for hismelf.
Or perhaps not. As he would have said, were their circumstances reversed, "either way would work."