Chapter Text
It's only recently that you've really gotten acquainted with the back ways through the cathedral, the servants' passages and the like. In terms of sheer distance, many of them take longer than the direct and well-trodden routes that you took as Fon Master, but for getting places unseen, they're by far the superior option.
And on days like today, when the whole of Daath is packed into the main corridors, these routes are definitely faster. You're grateful to Anise for showing them to you.
That's what you think about as you make your way down into Oracle Headquarters as quickly as your feet will carry you, barely stopping before the guards still standing at the doors wave you on. You can see the questions in their postures, but presumably seeing the former Fon Master moving through the hallways at just shy of a run is enough to keep them unasked. No one in Daath thinks of you as a person who rushes anywhere.
You wonder if the news of what Mohs pulled has reached down here yet. Another lesson Anise imparted to you all the more explicitly once she was no longer hiding things - never underestimate Daath's rumor mill.
You're winded, when you get to the small room you've been sharing with Asch for the days you've been in Daath since Mohs had you removed from your former position. There isn't much in it, really - nothing in the way of personal touches. Asch's uniforms are crowded to one side of the wardrobe, as much to make room for his new things from Sheridan as to make any space for your clothes, because without the Fon Master's wardrobe, you don't have many things at all.
Yet, you still know better than to think that Sync will sacrifice anything he has for the poor replica that Mohs dug up from wherever he was hidden. It's probably for the better; he's even less likely than Asch to own anything other than his personally modified uniforms, after all. And it isn't that you're exactly poor (rather, it's not that most of your friends are poor, and neither Asch's officer's wages nor Princess Susanne nor Emperor Peony would see you going without), but you've yet to develop the inclination to prioritize getting yourself more than the bare minimum of clothes.
Well. You'll have to make time for it now, you suppose. For now, you gather an old shirt - one of the ones with the loose bell sleeves that went under your official robes - and a few other things to take back up to the cathedral proper.
(As much as you'd like to take a nap, you don't do anything more than give the bed a longing look.)
You're halfway back up, at the doors, before anyone seems to take much notice of you. There's more activity now, more eyes that fall on you as you make your way (and it's harder to rush up the stairs through the warrens of Oracle Headquarters than it is to make your way down them in a hurry), but no one actually tries to stop you from going anywhere. It probably helps that you've put on a face that declares you to be on a mission, and that expression you learned from the best.
But it's Hazel who falls into step beside you, and her you cannot so easily ward away with the set of your brows. She doesn't fidget; she's too-well trained for that. But there's hesitation in her voice as she asks, "That boy - is he really...?"
"It isn't him," you say. "That boy is another replica Mohs stashed away somewhere. I'm certain of it."
The two of you slip from Oracle Headquarters against the flow of an increasing crowd; less because of the shift change and more because, you suppose, the crowd at the front of the cathedral has finally dispersed. Most of the people passing you by are in civilian clothes, and only glance briefly at you.
"You're sure," Hazel says, not a question, and then says, "Even after what you told me before, it was startling to see the Chief of Staff without his mask. I thought I was ready for it, but..."
"It was a surprise to me to see him come running in without it," you say. "Did anyone pick it up for him, do you know? I noticed he wasn't even carrying it."
"Someone must have, but I couldn't tell you who," Hazel says. "I left the crowd almost as soon as the doors closed - with Commander Cantabile inside, someone needed to put the rest of the Guard on notice."
"Well, thank you for that," you say. "I know Cantabile sent runners, but I'm sure that it helped that there were already people standing ready."
"A good officer needs to be proactive," Hazel says. "Especially in the Fon Master Guard."
She sticks to you as you pull off to an emptier hallway - both of you know this path well. She probably knows it better than you do.
"May I ask you," she says, her voice falling quieter, "a delicate question?"
You shoot her a look with your eyebrows raised. "You may," you say. "At worst, I suppose I'll simply be unable to answer."
Hazel is quiet for a moment, the only sound in the hallways your footsteps and the rustle of fabric. Finally, she says, "Did you see his body? After he died."
You don't risk closing your eyes at the pace you're going, but you still fall silent for some length of hallway, a turn to the left, thinking. "I suppose I did," you say. "At least - I have a vague memory of one morning, his coughing was quiet, for the first time in a long time."
At least, it felt like a long time back then. But you were what, three months old at that time? So even a few weeks felt eternal.
"And that was the last time I ever saw him," you say. "Mohs came to retrieve me that morning, and he was oddly quiet. When he brought me back a few hours later, the bed was empty."
"I suppose we were all out of the way by that point," Hazel says bitterly. "It wouldn't do to have one of us accidentally stumble across him dead while you were giving services."
When you glance at her again, her hands are balled into tight little balls, and her footsteps sound louder than they were. It's a good thing she's not as tall as even Natalia, or she would probably begin to outpace you with the energy of her emotions.
"No," you agree quietly, "it wouldn't have."
You take a breath and adjust the bundle under your arm, as the two of you finally come into sight of the warp pads that lead up to the Fon Master's quarters and the various other places in the upper tiers. There's a pair of guards with the Fon Master Guardian emblems on their tabards, though they're both men and not anyone you particularly recognize. Cantabile's people, no doubt.
They give both you and Hazel a nod, not that either of you has slowed. You allow yourself a moment's breath before going up; Hazel seems intent on continuing to see you through to your destination.
The warp is easy and familiar, at least.
With no one else around to hear, you say, "At the time, I didn't understand death. To me, he was just... gone. It was perhaps another two months before I truly understood that he wasn't going to come back, that the only 'Ion' was me."
Hazel exhales quietly. "Did you mourn him then?"
You shake your head, give her a weak smile that you don't entirely feel. "What would I have known of mourning? It's not like anyone else was mourning him, either."
"I guess not," Hazel says. It's still a bit bitter.
You turn towards her properly, tilt your head slightly like you've seen Anise do when she wants to pry information out of someone - though your voice is much gentler than hers would be. "If there's something you want to get off your chest, Hazel..."
She looks away, down and off to the side, not meeting your eyes. "I didn't like him," she says. "I was supposed to die for him, supposed to spend the entire rest of my life ready to die for him - and I didn't even like him. I spent two years telling myself that it would get better, that eventually he wouldn't be so cold towards us. We all did. The only one he intentionally spent time with was Arietta, and then he sent her away, too, like a pet he didn't like anymore."
She takes a deep breath, and says, "I hope it isn't him. That he's really dead. And then I feel terrible, because he didn't do anything to deserve that. But even if he was perfect in public, I can't imagine having this kind of conversation with him - can't imagine him slowing down for a moment to listen to someone like me."
She lifts her eyes and says, "And I'm worried about having another Fon Master like that. One who's just... cold. I don't want to give my life up for someone like that."
You release a breath of your own. "I understand," you say. "And... I won't lie to you and say that Asch is a warm person. Not that I would ever call him cold - " He burns too hot for that, the sacred flame he was supposed to be kicked out from the brazier and threatening to bring the house down with him. " - but he is rather sharp towards even his friends."
Hazel is quiet for a moment at that, before saying, "I don't think the original Ion had anyone he would have called a friend."
"No," you agree. "I don't think he did."
----
Gretchen Lindsay has had Cantabile help her strip the other replica by the time you arrive - Hazel politely averts her eyes almost as soon as she's come in the door, turning to stand with her back to them and her face towards the entrance, but neither of the older women seem at all bothered. Anise is nowhere to be seen.
For your part, you can't help but compare. The boy lacks even your small amount of muscle definition, and his ribs are visible - not so visible as to be called emaciated, perhaps, but uncomfortably clear. His limbs - especially his feet - carry the redness of burn scars, old enough that they're no longer shiny.
The Fon Master's bathing chamber has the luxury of a tub with a seat built into it, and it's there that Gretchen and Cantabile are giving the boy a cursory sponge bath from a bucket on the floor. You set the bundle of clothes you've brought on the counter and ask, "Is there anything I can do?"
"Nothing here," Lindsay says, "unless Sergeant Grants has been teaching you healing artes under the table as well." You shake her head, and she looks back at her work. "We'll be done here soon, if you could ready the bed."
"Of course," you say. Hazel follows you out, and between the two of you, you're able to get the blankets pulled back without making a tangled heap. Someone had already set it up for whichever candidate was going to become Fon Master today if things had gone according to plan, it seems, because the sheets are already on.
And so it once again becomes a sick room, you can't help but think.
The other replica's hair is still damp when Cantabile carries him back in, but she settles him into a chair instead of the bed. A knock at the door makes you tense - but as it turns out, it's Tear and Anise, both carrying various kinds of supplies.
Anise catches your eyes and says, "All I seem to be doing lately is fixing people's hair," with a tilt of her head at Tear. You give them a small smile.
"Most of it is a lost cause," Cantabile says, keeping her hand on the boy's shoulder to keep him from slumping forward. "Just do what you can."
Anise nods, and sets about setting her scissors and comb on your former bedside table. You turn away from them to where Tear is handing a healer's pack to Gretchen. Over her other shoulder is slung a bottle in a case that you recognize as the most flavorless of the kitchens' broth.
"How is he?" you ask the healer.
"The malnutrition is the worst," Gretchen says. "His body doesn't have the proper energy for a fever right now, but he's not especially injured, just some light bruising, and there's no indication of lingering illness. Aside from the fact that there's signs of smoke inhalation, which is only to be expected given where he was found, his breathing sounds good - better than yours some days, if I may be frank."
You wince only slightly. From behind you, Anise says, "Ouch."
"Well, it's not as though I was under any illusions regarding my own health," you say. "But that's another point against him being the original, as though we needed any more. It was most likely pnuemonia."
No one asks what you mean. The sound of scissors is the only thing you can hear.
You have a growing awareness of how your own hair is starting to get long enough to fall over your neck, rather than clipped tightly against the back of your skull. When Mohs was in charge of your keeping, it was cut every four weeks on a schedule begun by your original. Now it's whenever you think of it, which hasn't been since before you went down to Yulia City.
Your hand wanders, coming to rest on the back of your neck. The strands there aren't quite long enough to really tie back successfully, but they're long enough to dig your fingers into, to loop around and catch in the pinch of your skin if you made a fist.
"Ion?"
Tear's eyes catch yours, her expression full of concern. You can guess what she's thinking, her own recent haircut so prominent on her face.
You drop your arm away from your neck too fast, and say, "Is there anything else you need from me?"
Gretchen shakes her head. "I'm sure we'll be able to find everything," she says.
"Then I'll take my leave," you say, giving a perfunctory bow that you've never given anyone in this room on an individual basis and leaving before you can see Anise finish trimming another person's hair into the preferred style of the dead.
----
Tear follows you out, and catches up to you before you make it back to the group's rooms. It isn't as though you're going very quickly; left now without the immediacy of a mission, you let yourself slow down.
She's still wearing the same look of concern, but she doesn't question you again, at least. You don't know what you would be able to say, at this point.
I'm starting to understand why Sync always wears a mask fails to sound right in your head, nevermind in your mouth. It takes too long to say what it means, long enough that even you aren't sure what it's really trying to say. You think you understand Sync right now better than you ever have, after having watched Mohs hamfistedly try to shove yet another Ion into place for his own purposes.
(And yet you don't understand him at all, because Sync is the only one of you who has ever gotten to choose how to cut his hair.)
You hope, for that other replica's sake, that it's immediately clear to everyone that he isn't Ion, because bearing this frustrating name and legacy isn't something you'd wish on any innocent, especially not one who will already have such a difficult road ahead of him.
As you cut across the cathedral's main hall on a pathway hanging above, where few of the loiterers below can see you (there are still more than you'd prefer to count, though nothing on the packed crowd of earlier), Tear finally says, "I don't think I've ever seen you so angry."
"Is that what I am?" you ask, because - well and truly - you can't be sure.
Tear says, her voice hiding a smile, "Someone who wasn't in the know would think that Asch was the one who raised you, when you're stalking down the halls like that."
You pause, almost mid-step, feeling the force you put into the flooring under your soft shoes. The tension in your shoulders (and that's one of the things on the cardinal lists that your original taught you, that the memories dredged up by the curse slot gave back to you, never walk with your shoulders tense, it makes you look unapproachable), the set of your brows, the dryness in your mouth.
Almost as soon as you notice them, they disappear. You almost don't want them to go, but anger takes enough energy to maintain that you understand why it so easily became Asch's default state, when there was so much wrong with the world and he wasn't allowed to do anything about it. Surely it was the only place he had left for all that helpless energy to go.
You come to a stop. There's no one else near enough to hear, but you still drop your voice to say, "I am so damn tired of Mohs always having one more trick he can pull out of his ass, just when we think we've got him handled and can start to tackle everything else."
Tear comes to a stop next to you, and, rather than saying anything, hesitantly puts a hand on your shoulder. "I know," she says. "And it's not right, that he kept one of - to keep anyone trapped in the volcano like that."
You're not sure what she corrected herself from saying, but it doesn't matter. You say, "He was kept somewhere else. Gretchen said that the signs of smoke inhalation were recent, not chronic, and I'm not sure how long an unconscious person could survive down there before dehydration, but it isn't long." Your now-empty canteen sits heavy in your pocket.
"So he was kept somewhere else, and retrieved specifically for this?" Tear says, not really asking. "I'm not sure if that's better or worse, to be honest."
"I don't, either." You sigh. "There's no way of knowing how... mentally functional he'll be. I don't really expect him to just sit up and start talking to people, even if he seems to wake up."
"Is that really the best he has to hope for?" Tear asks.
"It depends on how successful his replica programming was and how much of it remains," you say. "But children who are raised in isolation... Once I started to understand the significance of Arietta's circumstances, I learned a bit about it. Since ligers are a social monster, she's actually really lucky. Normally children who are that neglected barely understand language and can't form sentences at all, and they don't understand social rules or norms."
Arietta, on the other hand, had adapted to live among humans well enough to get through the rest of her life with humanity, if that was what she chose. She coped under culture shock that perhaps no one else in the world could understand, but she knew that social rules existed even if those of humanity were foreign to her.
Tear sighs. There's a taut expression on her face, but it seems like she doesn't have any more idea what to do to help than you do. She says, "We should catch up to the others. I'm sure they've already started planning the next steps."
You nod, and say, "If nothing else, it will be a relief to be out of Daath for a while. It will be a few weeks at least before that boy has recovered enough to tell us anything, and I'm sure Van is just as eager to get back to whatever he was doing before Mohs interrupted things. We can't afford to be too far behind."
"We can't afford to be behind at all," Tear agrees. "The years Van's already had to plan this are enough of a head start."
You grimace, but it's not wrong. The two of you finish your progress over the heads of the crowd's stragglers in silence.
Just outside the former Tatlin rooms, you can hear voices, or possibly just one voice - through a solid wooden door isn't the best way to tell Luke and Asch apart, but it's one of the two. You knock first, and everything goes quiet, before you open the door and come in, Tear on your heels.
Asch is standing in the pathway at the foot of the beds, where Jade's cot has been set up for the last few days; everyone else is standing or seated well clear of it. Luke is sitting on one of the beds, hunched over with his head hanging. As you watch, Mieu sticks his head under the redhead's hand, and Luke begins the motions of petting the cheagle's ears almost unconsciously.
You take a look over everyone else. Jade and Guy have matching dark expressions; Peony's eyes are on Luke, at least before his gaze flicks to you and Tear. But it's Natalia's expression of swallowed horror that really serves as an informative one, the way she sits next to Luke as though afraid to offer any comfort.
Jade says, "Oh, good, you got here before I had to get to the really bad news."
Guy says, "You seriously have something worse than that up your sleeve?"
You sigh. "I presume you've gotten through telling everyone about your thoughts on Duke Fabre, then," you say. No wonder Asch looks angry enough to pace straight up the wall and onto the ceiling, and no wonder Luke is staring at his hands, subdued.
You duck past Asch to sit beside Luke, opposite Natalia, and wrap your hand around the one of his that isn't already occupied with Mieu. Luke says, "Yeah, well - screw him, anyway. It's not like we didn't all already know he was a piece of work."
When you glance back, Tear has her eyebrows raised, but as she takes up her usual position in Oliver's old armchair (where she isn't close enough to Guy to bother him), she just says, "What did he do this time?"
"Probably facilitated my kidnapping, almost certainly has been funding Van's involvement in fomicry, at least back before he was Commandant and had an entire military budget to play with with next to no oversight," Asch says. His tone is about where you expected him to arrive eventually - betrayed, but in a bitter, used-to-it way that colors so many of his interactions with the Kimlascan crown. "And thinks it was all for the best, of course."
Tear's expression darkens, but she doesn't say anything immediately. You say, "Are you sure you're all right, Luke?"
"I hate how much it makes sense," Luke says. "I already knew he didn't really care about me, even if I thought that was just because of the memory loss." He stops petting Mieu for a moment, prompting the cheagle to wiggle out from under his hand to sit on his knee. "Now I'm... kind of glad, if this is what him caring leads to."
Mieu sits back on his haunches, and says, "It's not right. He should have been there for you. Even when I burned down the forest and everyone was angry with me, we were still a family."
"Yeah," Luke says. He reaches up and scratches under Mieu's chin. "Everyone always told me that you don't pick your family, but I'm pretty sure they're wrong. I know who chose me and who didn't."
Mieu makes a pleased squeak.
Tear says, "You're handling it pretty well, I think."
"I know I'm not alone," Luke says. "If it wasn't for all of you..." He squeezes your hand. "I don't know. Maybe Master Van's idea of remaking the world would be appealing if I didn't have anyone I cared about in this one."
"That's certainly one of the ways he gets to people," Asch says, bitterly. (You remember the way he came to you, that first time, and you didn't know it then but you know it now, what Asch looks like when he's afraid but going to risk everything anyway. You wish you didn't know.)
He turns, and in a way that's clearly trying to not raise his voice enough to be heard through the door, says, "What really bad news, Jade?"
Jade stays quiet for a moment in a way that's telling - he knows that Asch won't let him get away with a non-answer, but whatever it is, he still doesn't want to say it. "Based on our findings at Choral Castle and what Dist said on the Isle of Feres," he says, "I believe it a distinct possibility that at least one of Van or Dist still possesses a copy of your replica data from that time."
"You mentioned that before," you say.
Jade nods, and then adds, "But the more relevant portion is that that replica research indicates that it is impossible to create a replica of Asch that is not a perfect isofon," he says. "And therefore capable of utilizing the same solo hyperresonance ability that Asch and Luke possess."
"We don't know for sure that Luke can do it," Tear says.
"I cannot imagine otherwise," Jade says. "Nor can I imagine anything else offhand that might fit the Score's requirement of the 'power of Lorelei.' And now that Van is freed from obligations here in Daath, we can assume that any plans that were delayed by Mohs would once again be under way."
"Oh," Asch says. "Great. So they can just fucking - "
He cuts himself off and sits on the end of the other bed, like his strings were cut.
Jade says, "The records that were still on Choral Castle were incomplete, but they indicated that your unique fonon frequency was posing some difficulty to the researchers. The possibility exists that it is not possible to secure reproducible data. However, now that Commandant Grants himself is no longer stapled to Daath by Mohs' interference, we must consider the possibility that the destruction of Akzeriuth is once again on the table."
"But they can't get into the Sephiroth or whatever, right?" Luke says, lifting his head and trying to sound hopeful.
"Not through legitimate means," Jade says. "But putting a Daathic seal over the door doesn't prevent blowing a hole in the wall."
You bite your lip. It stings, familiarly, like excavating a curse slot from your arm.
Guy says, "So all of that struggle over who would be the next Fon Master was for nothing, even if Mohs hadn't shown up with another replica at the end."
"I wouldn't say that," Peony says. "For one thing, you strong-armed Kimlasca into at least paying lip-service to making peace - and I don't think Duke Fabre will risk going back on his word, not when the royal court is already giving him a hard side-eye for how he's handling the Luke issue. And we do know who won." He directs his gaze to Asch, with a grin. "If the vote went his way, Mohs wouldn't have pulled that last card out of his ass, would he?"
Asch, who had been staring a hole into the floor in an almost identical posture to Luke (minus cheagle), looks up, and his blink is nearly audible.
Jade, something of his usual smug smile creeping back into his voice, says, "His Majesty does make a good point."
"I do that from time to time," Peony says, knocking his ankle into Jade's shin where he sits next to the colonel. "More seriously," he says, "Mohs has to be scared to pissing himself that that Score you so helpfully told us all about might get out to the public. He already doesn't have any goodwill in Malkuth, and now he doesn't have any left among the other Maestros. I'm betting he won't have any in Kimlasca as soon as your parents get back to Baticul, either."
"It also probably wasn't a point in Van's favor," you say, "that you presented yourself as someone who had been putting thought into the issue for a long time, even before reading that Score and confirming it."
"Surely at least some of them would have put together Asch's comment about being told about the Score by a Hod survivor, though?" Natalia asks. "Between Tear's reclaiming her family name and everything else..."
"I'm sure Hildagarde has figured it out," Tear says. "I don't know when she left our... Yulia City, but I'm sure she's perfectly well aware that 'Fende' isn't a name that's used down there, even if she doesn't know it's from Hod."
"She's also smart and well-studied enough to put together 'Vandesdelca' and the 'one who would seize glory' mentioned in the Score of Hod's destruction," Asch says. "And I put his full name out in front of all the Maestros when I challenged him."
"What's the full text of that Score?" Guy asks. "I know there was one, but I don't think I've ever heard it properly."
"The one who would seize glory shall destroy the island of his birth, a land named Hod. War shall persist between Kimlasca and Malkuth for a full cycle of the seasons," Asch recites, almost blandly. There's no thumming of power in it - the Score isn't actually being read - but there's a poetic rhythm to his voice, nonetheless. It's slightly different from the cadence of how he actually read it off the fonstone, but it's hardly a surprise that he memorized it.
That Score, stuck between the one of his birth and the one of his death, has been just as much at the center of his life.
It hangs in the air for a moment, before Peony says, "Yeah, no doubt about that one, huh."
"I wonder if our mother knew," Tear says. "If my brother was named for that Score, the way you were."
That, too, hangs in the air, but in a way that is darker and more cloying. If she did, you think, it would have been too cruel a thing to do to her own child.
You hope she didn't, even if only for Tear's sake.
Jade says, "There's no point speculating, since we cannot ask such questions of the dead."
"Right," Peony says. "My point is that Mohs was pulling out everything he had to discredit Asch and back him into a corner, and the other Maestros were having none of it. So it's not on paper yet, sure, but for all intents and purposes... Well, we'd better start getting Luke up to speed on how to manage a national budget at this rate, is all I'm saying."
"Please don't make me think about math," Luke says.
"At least it will make Anise happy that her bribery for your goodwill has served some purpose in the long run," Jade says cheerfully, just before the sound of the door swinging open. "And I do hope that's the devil I'm speaking of, or we'll have to have some very stern words with an eavesdropper."
"Talking about me?" Anise says, from behind you. You twist to give her a small smile, all you can manage with all the heavy thoughts in the room. "I hope you were saying nice things, or I'll put itching powder in your underwear."
"You'd have to find them, first," Jade says serenely.
"Welcome back, Anise," you say. "How did it go after we left?"
She sighs. "About the way Commander Lindsay expected," she says. "It doesn't seem like that poor kid's waking up any time soon. We managed to get him cleaned up and put some broth into him, though."
"That's something, at least," Natalia says.
"Thank you, Anise," you say, the words anything but empty.
She gives you a weak smile in turn, before hopping up to land butt-first on the bed behind you, sitting perpendicular to your back with her legs dangling. "So what are we talking about?"
"How Mohs wouldn't have gone completely off what little rails he has left if the vote turned out in Van's favor," Guy says.
"Oh," Anise says. "Well, congratulations, Asch. Good to see all the work we put in getting you a crowd wasn't for nothing, even if Mohs made an ass of it."
"Thanks," Asch says. "You're the only member of the Fon Master Guard I'm firing."
His tone is just dry enough that you can't tell if it's serious or not. Anise certainly doesn't seem to take him seriously, because she giggles and thumps one of her feet against the bottom of the mattress. From the way Asch sighs in turn, exasperated, it can't have been that serious a threat.
"What comes next, then?" Natalia asks. "Because if we have nothing more pressing..."
Asch sighs, and says, "Well, I'm going to have to talk to the other Maestros a bit - make sure Hildagarde knows where I stand regarding Mohs and let Cornelius pick at me about edits, and so on. My prize is all of the nasty parts of politics without any of the useful aspects of being Fon Master."
"Gross," Anise says.
"Well, I need to get back to Grand Chokmah as quickly as possible, before someone goes off picking fights half-baked without me to keep an eye on them," Peony says. "We are still at war, after all." He gives Jade a significant look.
Jade sighs in his typical manner, and says, "Fortunately, I doubt the Kimlascan front has done much of anything, since Duke Fabre is also here, but you do have a point. We should inform the rest of our forces that there's no need to take... desperate, regrettable actions, not when we may actually have a chance at a peace treaty."
"So you had a fallback plan in place," Asch says.
"It's best if... Well, you would be fine with the details," Jade replies, clearly amending his thought partway through. "But not all of us have such robust constitutions."
Luke takes a deep breath to steady himself. "Right, I don't want to know," he says. "Maybe math isn't so bad."
Natalia says, "As much as I would like to return to Baticul to straighten things out there - to at least hear what Father was thinking..." She seems to take a steadying moment herself, though not as obvious as Luke's deep breath, and continues, "We should investigate that flying facility with all speed, surely? Without doubt, it's where Dist and any... additional replicas of Asch might be."
"No, Baticul might be the right decision right now," Asch says. "Because if it comes to a fight, right now we'd be tangling with Dist, Largo, Van, and probably Sync, since I can't imagine he wants to be in Daath right now."
"Yeah, he'll probably take any excuse to get out of here now that people know," Guy agrees. "Not Legretta, though?"
"Van will want someone here to keep an eye on things," Asch says. "I'm sure His Majesty's guesswork about the outcome of the vote will occur to him soon if it hasn't already, but Van can't afford to fully extract himself from Daath yet. Especially if he's falling out of favor, he needs someone here he can trust, who won't make any waves or attract a ton of attention. Legretta and Largo are the only ones who fit the bill, and one of them's already here, so no point in calling the other back."
"So we don't want to go investigate the flying whatever it is because that's the first place they're going to go," Luke summarizes. "Okay. Do we need someone to stay here?"
"Not one of us," Asch says. "Unless Cornelius chains me to a desk, we can take the chance of all going to Baticul."
"We have people here who already aren't going anywhere," you tell Luke. "Commander Cantabile won't be able to leave Daath until the matter of the other replica's identity is resolved."
"Well, I won't argue with that," Natalia says. "If you're willing to take the time to go to Baticul after we return His Majesty to Grand Chokmah, I certainly won't complain."
"You probably don't want to beat the Fabres there anyway," Peony says. "Let Susanne try and bring her brother around to the idea of peace before you go in, since the 'walk softly' part of your dynamic doesn't have so much power anymore." His gaze falls on you, before going to Asch. "Big sticks aren't exactly the best tool for getting people to agree to make peace."
Asch sighs and doesn't argue. "Without a Fon Master's authority to back me up, I can't exert much pressure anyway," he says. "Other than pointing out that his own dumbassery means he's without an immediate heir, I don't have anything over Ingobert. And as much as the rest of the nobility would chafe about the crown bouncing out of House Lanvaldear to a Fabre, they'd accept it, since the line is pretty damn clear."
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Natalia says.
"I'm sure without Mohs there, His Majesty will be more amenable to talking things out reasonably," Tear agrees. "And Mohs won't be going anywhere away from Daath, either."
"Not until the shit he's stirred up settles down," Anise agrees. "Which won't be until that poor kid wakes up."
"Okay, so Asch needs to go tie up loose ends with the Maestros," Guy says. "Is there anything else that needs to be done before we get out of here? Because to be honest, staying in Daath this long is starting to make me jumpy."
You shake your head; for your part, you're looking forward to being gone, as well.
Jade says, "I would like to test that hypothesis of Asch's in the Sephiroth here, if such a thing is possible." He pushes his glasses up as his eyes fall on you. "Assuming, that is, that Ion is willing."
You want to say no.
You want to say that the seal on the Mount Zaleho Sephiroth has already been broken, so there's no reason for you to go along. But the fact is that no one else here has actually been there, and the last thing you want is for any of your friends to get lost in the depths of the volcano and never return.
(The volcano has already taken enough from you, things and people that you will never get to know. You won't let it have anything else.)
But you straighten up inside and take a deep breath, and say, "The idea is sound, and I doubt we'll get a better chance to test it, since most of the Passage Rings are deliberately out of the way and far from civilization."
Jade nods, and turns his head towards Guy, who says, "Yeah, I'm down," before the question can even be vocalized.
"If Ion's going, then I'm going," Anise says.
"Then I'll come along as well," Tear says. "That should be plenty of us. Luke and Natalia can see the Kimlascan party off, and Asch can go work on his manuscript edits."
"I suppose you'll just have to entertain yourself, Your Majesty," Jade says.
"You never let me have any fun," Peony says. But he sighs and adds, "Such is the burden of the crown, unfortunately. Fine, no adventuring for me."
Jade, as much as he ever does, seems reassured by the lack of pushback. "Then we'll plan for tomorrow," he says. "Today has been quite eventful enough, I think."
You don't say anything in agreement, but Luke cracking a yawn with relief is all anyone needs to say, anyway.
----
Despite the fact that Asch has been released from Jade's close watch to return to the familiar environment of his own quarters, and you with him, it takes you a long time to fall asleep that night.
The both of you, really, because you can tell Asch isn't sleeping easily, either. You can tell because there are several times that he moves, just shy of shifting and clearly stopping himself from actually turning over to avoid disturbing you, even if his breathing is forcefully steady in a way that might be an intentional imitation of sleep and might just be him trying to keep calm.
Eventually, you get fed up, and elbow him. "I'd rather you actually rolled over than the way you keep trying to force yourself to be comfortable where you are," you say.
Asch huffs, but it seems it was enough to get him to roll over onto his side, instead of the flat on his back way that he usually sleeps. He's facing you now, nominally, though his head is enough above yours that you can't see his face. You tend to curl and tuck yourself into his side, these days.
(The both of you, really, came into this consistently sleeping on your backs, laid out like you were in a hospital bed or worse. At least you have the excuse of having been programmed to sleep that way. But while there might have been room for it in the hotel beds, Asch's room in the barracks wasn't designed for more than one person, and it was more than a bit of a squeeze.)
(You're more comfortable this way, you've discovered, using his side or arm in place of a pillow.)
You readjust slightly and settle in, not much closer to sleeping but hoping that at least one of you will manage it. Surely your endless well of fatigue will overcome you soon...
Just as it's starting to creep in, Asch breaks the silence and says, "If they have made another replica... What do I do?"
It's so rare for him to ask for direction from anyone. You almost can't remember a time when he's sounded so openly lost. Even that day, when you told him with food rather than words that you knew him, he had still sounded like he knew where he was going.
But you're too tired for complicated answers, so you say, "You give him a name of his own, because Van isn't human enough to bother. And then you'll be aggressively decent to him like you always are."
Silence. You have the vague memory of an arm wrapping around your shoulders, and then you drop off for real.
----
Zaleho is as hot as it always is, but it passes more easily when you aren't alone, and even more easily than that when you have company that isn't Sync, forever egging you on even when he keeps his mouth shut.
Though you have to admit that Jade, dressed in the same uniform as always without even the slightest drop of sweat in concession to the heat, cuts an amusing figure in comparison to everyone else. The way Anise harasses him about it helps keep you out of your head, too.
Eventually, you reach the sight of the former Daathic seal, and you force a water break there, even for Jade, who pulls his canteen out without objection, so he must be feeling the heat no matter how he acts outwardly.
"I don't know how far in we'll have to go before we encounter the Albertesque Seal, I'm afraid," you say after you've had enough of a drink to fortify yourself. "From what Van said at Meggiora, it's before the Yulian Seal, but it's impossible to know the size of the sealed area until we're inside. Sync and I didn't go any further than this when we were here."
"Do you think it will be hotter in there?" Anise asks. She's visibly drooping even as she drinks her water, her hair limp with sweat around her face.
"Most likely, it will be the opposite," Jade says. "Based on the section of Passage Ring we camped at on our way up Mount Roneal, they seem to have a moderating effect on the more severe local conditions."
"That would be nice," Tear says, capping up her own water and leaning against a rock beside you.
Jade mmms dismissively. "I'm more concerned with the question of if the Albertesque Seal is similar to the Daathic," he says. "I would rather not leave the door standing open behind us, when it is already unlocked."
Guy shifts his weight, palming the hilt of his sword. Even in the low light of the volcano, the Jewel of Gardios practically glows. "Should we do this at one of the other places, then?" he asks. "One that isn't so close to a major population center."
"Unfortunately, there aren't really any of those," you say. "Except for the Absorption Gate at the north pole, all of the Passage Rings support at least one major city, and most of them support smaller settlements besides. The least populated location is Akzeriuth's."
"And we're trying to avoid the risk of kicking off the Score by going there," Guy says, with a sigh and a nod. "All right. If there's no good choices, we might as well go with the one in front of us."
"At least Daath has no history of mining," Jade says cheerfully. "Not in recorded history, at any rate. So as far as kicking off the Score, it's an unlikely first target."
"And the Maestros would surely listen if it is the case that we can't close the Albertesque Seal again," Tear says. "The ones who take the Score Asch read seriously, at least. They can develop an evacuation plan."
Guy's expression hardens at that. "Let's hope we don't need to go that far," he says.
You pick yourself up off the ground, and as a group, you enter the Passage Ring.
Just like in Meggiora, the scale of it takes your breath away. The pathways arc back and forth over the inner chamber of the volcano, some of them openly levitating over the churn of magma below. As Jade had suspected, it's marginally cooler inside - a regular hot day, as opposed to one that threatens to kill you. The air tingles with more than a faint trace of memory particles, just like before.
The pathways through the volcano aren't complete, but in a way that suggests deliberateness - another layer of defense, you can only suppose. Getting the timing on landing the fire fonons in the torches isn't too difficult for Jade - to whom the task falls by default, despite his token protests - but you would have been forced to turn back otherwise. They don't stay lit for that long, either, so you'll have to light them anew on the way back.
Guy, predictably, gets immediately distracted by the Dawn Age technology present, and has to be dragged away from the remains of a guardian golem that's been modified to withstand the heat. Since Jade doesn't seem inclined to help, somehow the task of keeping him focused on the task ahead falls to you, as the only other person whose touch won't prompt him into a meltdown.
"It really is impressive that nothing has failed," Tear says, as your group crosses from one of the levitating force field bridges onto solid ground. "So much of Yulia City is failing, even with people taking care of it as best they can. But all of this is still working perfectly."
"It kinda makes you wonder if it was meant to last this long," Anise says. "Yulia City, I mean."
"Maestro Hildagarde thinks it wasn't," Tear says quietly. "She told me that it's never once mentioned in Yulia's Score after the Outer Lands were lifted, and she called it a reliquary. I doubt she would be surprised that the Passage Rings are better made and in better condition now."
"The miasma in the Qliphoth wouldn't help, either," you say. "We don't really know what the long term effects of that on fontech would be, but given how toxic it is for living things..."
There's an archway that sticks out on the wall, and you all turn in that direction without it being specifically pointed out. After all, it's the only way to progress forward from here.
As you pass through the short tunnel, it feels as though the air goes from humming to singing. The flow of memory particles is much stronger inside - to you, it feels as though it should be lifting the hair off your face, even though the flow isn't truly physical. Memory particles alone rarely are; it's only when they interact with fonons, especially the Seventh, that they become meaningful.
"Wow," Anise says, just ahead of you. She comes to a slow stop, pulling Tokunaga into her arms.
"It is quite the impressive sight, isn't it?" Jade asks.
Machinery emblazoned with what would eventually become the iconography of the Order of Lorelei hangs almost free over the lava, relying on the spout of the Sephiroth itself to help keep it afloat. The runic pathways that were shades of red in the other sections blaze gold in here. Ahead, a great round section of the platform bulges the path before it splits into a ring, which runs in a circle around a piece of machinery that floats entirely unsupported.
"It's almost enough," Jade adds, "to make you forget our reasons for seeing it."
With that somber reminder, you all shuffle into the chamber, gathering at the edge just shy of stepping onto the suspended pathways. You say, "After a certain point, the Albertesque Seal simply prevented Van from going any further forward - he wasn't shy about demonstrating. I imagine the same will apply here."
"Someone else should probably test it first," Guy says. "Just to make sure." He wraps his hand around the hilt of the sword at his side. The impressive jewel that forms so much of the crossguard seems to glow even more than usual, but you can't tell if that's just because of the strange directions of the light or if it actually is glowing so very slightly.
"On it," Anise says. She rolls her shoulders and steps onto the pathway, her expression scrunched with determination, before anyone can countermand her.
Three steps forward, and she can't progress any further. A glyph forms beneath her feet, the same as when Van showed you in Meggiora.
"That's the seal," you say. "Come on back, Anise."
She blows out a breath once she's back on solid land. "I could definitely feel that," she says. "The barrier is really strong. I definitely believe that it could keep anyone or anything from interfering with the machines in the middle."
"My turn, then," Guy says. "Anything special I should do?"
"Not that I know of," you say.
"Perhaps don't keep it at your belt and actually hold onto it," Jade suggests. "It would be a shame if your heirloom were to fall into the volcano, whether or not it is the key to the seal."
Guy rolls his eyes, but he does draw the weapon. The light refracts from the extensive guard with the motion, and then he takes a settling breath and steps out onto the platform.
One step, two, and three - in roughly the same place as Anise, the floor lights up beneath him. But the sword in Guy's hand lights up as well, that extended jewel of a guard truly glowing. Motifs appear along it, extending outward along the points of the guard.
"Well, they're certainly connected in some way," Jade observes. "Though it doesn't seem that the barrier has fallen, has it?"
"No, it's still there," Guy says. "But it feels almost like..."
He lifts the sword to shoulder level, holding it across with the complicated guard pointing outward, and hesitates. "It's like the sword itself knows what to do," he says.
"Creepy," Anise whispers.
"There might be Seventh fonstone embedded in the guard," Tear says. "It's possible to embed memories in them other than the Score; if those activated, that might explain what you're feeling."
"That would make sense," Jade agrees. "That way, the blade would work as a 'key' for almost any person, except for those with the very lowest receptivity to the Seventh."
"What is it telling you to do?" you ask.
"I think if I slash with it, the barrier will come down," Guy says. "But I also don't know if that's really such a good idea."
"No, best not," Jade says. "This is more than enough to confirm that Asch's hypothesis was correct. We can head back."
Guy exhales and takes a careful step backwards, lowering his arm. The glow of both the glyph and the Jewel of Gardios recede to almost nothing. If you squint, you can almost make out the lines of the seal still over the pathway, but that might be your imagination, or the bright blue-white light burned very slightly into your eyes from how it contrasts with the gold and dull orange of its surroundings.
It isn't until he's fully back on solid ground that he sheathes the sword again. Then he says, "Knowing this, I almost wonder if it wouldn't have been better to leave it in Fabre Manor. It would have been under better guard there."
"Perhaps," Jade says. "Or perhaps Van would have wheedled it out of Duke Fabre some other way. We certainly can't count on him not knowing what it is."
Tear nods. "It's almost certain he knows how to bypass the Yulian Seal," she says. "Given that he's mastered the hymns and everything else he had the chance to learn from our mother that he didn't pass on to me."
"And Sync isn't completely incapable of Daathic Artes," you add. "They just backlash on him far more than they do on me."
"Isn't he stronger than you?" Anise asks.
"Physically, yes, but the Daathic Artes are entirely Seventh Fonon artes," you say. "And his resonance with it isn't as good as mine. That's why I was chosen to be 'Ion' instead of any of the other replicas."
"Which is interesting in its own way," Jade says. "I wouldn't have thought it possible for a replica composed of the Seventh to fail to resonate with it, but that's the vagaries of resonance for you."
Tear hms quietly. "I hate to ask," she says. "But given that we're looking at the possibility of another replica of Asch... Is it possible for my brother, or Mohs, to have kept a copy of the data that was used to make you, Ion?"
"Absolutely, unfortunately," you say, refusing to acknowledge the dread in your stomach. "Or, for that matter, Sync - we have different data, that's why we have the variations we do."
Anise is the most expressive of the group around you, so it's her you keep an eye on to note when the mood grows too grim. You add, "But just having another replica wouldn't enable Van to use the Daathic artes. Even if they were able to program another replica with them successfully, they would still have to get that replica to the point where he could understand what they were asking for. That would take at least a couple of weeks."
"They have had that much time, but I see your point," Jade says. "Be careful of ruling it out entirely, but I do agree that it's unlikely at this particular moment. It would be a strange place to invest their energy, when there is the superior option of simply loading the Ion programming data into the replica of Asch they're making anyway."
The dread in your stomach takes full form, sinks past your knees with the force of a cannon. "Is that possible?" you ask.
"It's unclear," Jade says. "That kind of data is also stored in the form of a Seventh Fonon impression, and fonamin is not particularly stable in the long term in comparison to true Seventh fonstone. Normally, I would say that compatibility is also a potential issue, but to be frank, my knowledge of that aspect of the field is underdeveloped compared to what Dist has already done, and I haven't spent much time in translating the notes he left on that part of the process. I'll be rectifying that once we're in the air with time to kill, don't you worry."
"Why would compatibility be an issue?" you ask, curious.
"What does compatibility even mean in this context?" Tear asks, somewhat more forcefully. "Asch and Ion might be able to keep up with you when you talk about fomicry, but you do have more of an audience than that."
Jade sighs. "Put simply, it's a matter of potential discrepancies between the memories used to form the programming data and the replica's physicality, as well as their receptiveness to the Seventh in general," he says. "The same data wouldn't have the same impact in shaping Sync as it did the Ion beside us, because due to his lack of proclivity towards the Seventh, it simply wouldn't 'take' as well, but it would work better on either of them than on a replica of another person, who could begin to experience unconscious dysphoria due to the mismatch between the memories in the programming and their own form."
"So theoretically, it might not even work on a replica that isn't made with data used from the original Ion," Guy says. "Or at least not as well."
"And maybe badly enough that another replica wouldn't be able to use the Daathic Artes at all," Anise says. Her grip on Tokunaga relaxes in her arms. "That's good, at least."
Jade doesn't answer her. With a bad feeling as to why, you say, "You said normally you would be concerned about the compatibility."
As grim as he ever gets, which is a carefully controlled neutral, Jade says, "There are too many unpredictable factors when it comes to Asch and replicas thereof, due to his fonon resonance. To describe him as hyper-accomodating of the Seventh would be to describe the ocean as a bit of water, and there's the factor of Lorelei itself to consider. As much as I dislike the idea, I cannot rule out - nor even be surprised - that a properly isofonic replica of Asch could accomodate any data that you put into it. The issue of dysphoria would remain, but that in itself wouldn't be a source of rejection."
Silence, again.
"Let's get back," Guy says. "There's nothing we can do about that from down in the volcano."
"Yeah," Anise says. "I wish there was something we could do about it at all."
She isn't the only one. You turn away from the Passage Ring's golden motifs, wishing that you could leave your dread there in the volcano, but all too aware of how it drags behind you - like the person it concerns, too stubborn to burn away.