MfD Voyage: The Dream I Saw
fifteen thousand seven hundred thirty five
The shattered pieces of Hazou's mind sparked. Thoughts collided against thoughts, and his inner world began to move again. The things he had left behind flooded back in through the hole in his own mentality.
The first, and the absolute principle that Hazou could never give up – his own will.
From his heart, he felt the first flutters of chakra begin to fire. Begin to answer his own will.
His fingers curled into a fist. Even tired and exhausted, his body would never disobey him, so long as he drew breath.
"We," he panted, "will get Neji."
From the haze of exhaustion, Hazou began flexing the first pieces into the ANGEL engine on his back. He fed his energy into a loop, felt it roil and fed the multiplied energy back into himself.
The pain reminded him he was alive, and the subjugation and sublimation of the chakra took only an exertion of will.
As his limbs began to function again under the crushing sea, Hazou looked back at one of his greatest allies.
Enrou.
That wolf boss, burning a ghostly blue.
Time slowed for Hazou. His mind sunk into his signature.
The Seven Paths that he knew of were the Human, Deva, Asura, Preta, Animal, Devil, and Seventh. Everyone began on the Human, for they had surpassed the temptations and the base instincts of the Animal Path. To advance from the Animal Path, it was not solely a matter of the Universal Transport, but also to transcend your own base instincts and join hands in a civilization.
But once you transcended the Animal and Human paths, the next step was to challenge the Asura path. Only those who had reached the Asura paths had even the qualifications to progress down the road. In the Asura path, eternal battlefields and glory awaited. It was not merely the animal joy of battles, nor the human joy of connections, but the test of whether the eternal glories that awaited on a ceaseless battlefield would hold you.
Only those who had a reason to fight as the last person in the Elemental Nations – as the last person in all of existence – would have the right to advance from the Asura path. If you could stride forward on your own two feet.
But when you proved your worth there, you would find yourself confronted with the Preta Path. The path that would test your ability to focus on the things that were important. It would give you everything you wanted and punish you for your excess. The only desire that could survive its passage would be desirelessness, and having refined a soul through the four paths, they would be ready for the refinement into the Deva Path.
The Summons were an exception to the rule. The one the Sage of Six Paths had introduced. They stood apart from the Paths. So it made sense that the Summons could help a few other souls break the rules, so long as they had their own way to reduce their metaphysical weight.
But of his own volition, there was one more exception to the rule.
Hazou Goketsu.
And he stared at Enrou's offered back, and he realized something.
"You're correct, but I can't accept your help."
The easiest way to traverse paths was to die and let your soul move on. The second easiest way to traverse paths was to rely on the aid of the Summons.
But those who tread along the path would only head along the intended destination of the creator. Those who achieved enlightenment the conventional method would only achieve the conventional enlightenment.
Hazou began circling chakra between himself and his GUTS suit. From his heart to another, and from another heart to his own.
"You go on ahead, Enrou. I'll handle this."
One and one became two, two and two became four, and four and four became infinity.
"Besides, this is still the Preta Path. Trusting someone else to carry on your responsibilities because you lack the strength is no way to ascend into divinity," Hazou laughed, draining out his chakra.
The ghost barked out its assent.
"Well said," the ghost said. "I'm sure Enrou would happy to hear that."
Hazou nodded, and shattered existence.
He was only traveling in the same Path, not different paths, so the strain would be less difficult, and he was still shooting in the dark based only on his own guess of where Neji would be.
Through the instant of time and point of space, Hazou found himself in the middle of an empty field. Dust swirled in a field lit only by a bright sky, lit by no suns.
At the center of the field stood Neji, armored in his GUTS suit. He looked down at a headband held in his hand, and an emblem on the ground. The Hyuga emblem.
"I'm surprised," Neji said. "I thought I would be consumed by my anger, but here I am."
His back was still turned to Hazou, as Hazou strode forward.
"Is this the place you want to remain?" Hazou asked, stepping inside the third ring from Neji. From here, if Neji chose to attack, the attack would certainly hit. "This barren land?"
"It's not the place," Neji said. "It's the
time."
"Oh? What is it about the time?"
"Behold the end of the world," Neji said. "It's endless motes of dust, lit by no stars. Behold how even now, I still discharge my duty."
"Your duty to what?" Hazou said, stepping inside the second defensive line. Now only bare body lengths apart, they entered the area where neither could escape. Hazou should know. He helped design it this way.
"My destiny as a member of the Hyuga," Neji said, turning. He wore a contented smile. "Everything I have done has had a purpose, and it leads to this point in time."
Hazou stepped inside the third defensive line – the point when they were face to face. He looked around that barren land. None of his family were in the picture. None of his children, none of his parents. None of his friends, none of his enemies.
Only him, and his dead white eyes.
"Well, with one exception," Neji said, self-satisfied smile dropping into a scowl. "You."
"Me," Hazou agreed, spreading his arms wide. "Even at the end of the world, I'll never be just a memory."
"A memory of what?" Neji spat.
"That's a better look, Neji," Hazou said. "Are you starting to remember? The reason we asked you to come with us?"
"Because it is my destiny to serve the Hyuga, and if that means joining the madman, then I join the madman," Neji said, facial muscles trying to resume his serenity.
"How self-centered," Hazou shot back. "I didn't ask you why
you joined. Shino was certainly quick enough to decline."
"Who can guess how a madman thinks?" Neji said, shrugging his shoulders.
"I think I can," Hazou said. "And I can tell you why."
"No need. You chose me for my ability to work with the others. I have done just that." Neji said, resuming his serenity.
"No, you fool. I chose you because I have your measure," Hazou said. "Your body may have submitted, and your mind succumbs – but I can still see that your heart has not yet failed you yet."
Neji's eyes sparked, and the absent light returned for only a brief instant. Then it was washed away.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Neji said.
"I hate liars," Hazou baldly said. Then he snapped a kick into Neji's open jaw.
Neji's head ducked, and his hands picked up Hazou's leg. From his anchored feet came the rotation, and Hazou was bodily thrown a dozen meters behind Neji. Disengaging the chakra adhesion midair, Hazou got rid of the stone attached to his feet and engaged his third generation flight seals.
Neji looked up at Hazou, and the lights holding him in the air.
"Try as you might, you will not dislodge me from my destiny," he confidently said.
"True enough," Hazou said, shrugging. "
I won't."
Then the light converged into a roaring inferno behind Hazou, and he launched into a lunge. In his wake, a boom sounded, and in front of him was his fist.
The thrown fist was caught and sent on its way by Neji with only a slight rotation of his feet. The impact shattered the earth and sent Hazou on a rolling tumble over hundreds of meters.
"But still, I have to try," Hazou said, kipping up to his feet unphased.
"You will try fruitlessly," Neji said, artificial muscles of the GUTS suit glowing from exertion. "But I will be here to reject your advance."
His hands flashed in a string of handsigns. That old friend of Hazou's, the firefly jutsu, wielded in Neji's hands. Before Hazou was a constellation of fireballs, each exploding into a thousand thousand blue lights.
In Neji's hands, any one of those uncountable lights could kill.
"That's more like it," Hazou laughed happily. "Show me more that burning spirit within you!"
In his hands, he flickered through his own sequence of seals. Into the effect slot, he slammed in the Blizzard clip.
At once, the heavens of light descended on Hazou's course, as a brilliant jet of fire erupted behind him. Brilliant blue streaks whipped at him as Hazou's own ice blue icicles met the dancing lights with a tidal wave of cold. If Hazou couldn't match the sheer perfection of Neji's net, he would overcome it with a difference in number – or a difference in kind!
The icicles evaporated into a thick scalding steam, and for the first time Hazou realized he may have made a mistake. After all, Neji could see perfectly fine through the steam, but Hazou couldn't. Reversing his thrust and planting his feet into the ground, his hands flashed through the sequence for the Multiple Earth Wall.
Out from the earth came a tower of granite – or a cannon, if you were so inclined.
Hazou was so inclined.
The roaring of his flight seals turned his infinite chakra into boundless speed.
If Neji's control was unparalleled, Hazou simply had to start from high enough that his control didn't matter.
Hazou ascended as a plume of white.
Behind him, the trails of blue seemed to light his way, as even Neji couldn't keep up with Hazou's ascent, now kilometers into the sky.
"So? What will you do now?" Neji asked, over the GUTS comm channel.
Hazou took out an ordinary storage seal.
Out came a hunk of rock, light enough to hold in one hand with chakra boost, let alone the enhancements of the GUTS suit.
"If you won't be moved from your destiny, I'll simply destroy your destiny," Hazou replied, reshaping the stone to his will. The channels of chakra erupted all over the stone, hewed away the excess, and carved into it a seal.
"Hazou's Minute Meteor," Hazou said, and let go.
The stone erupted downwards at an impossible acceleration, shattering the sound barrier three times and more. In its wake, the atmosphere itself glowed a cherry red, and Hazou followed it in.
Neji looked up at the meteor and blanched. Out came his mightiest fire dragon, and the impact shattered the sky and the dragon. Falling flames lit the sunless sky like a meteor shower, and yet the stone kept descending.
Next came lightning, ascending from the earth to divide the stone meteor. Yet a tiny flicker of wind broke out in front of the meteor and drew the meteor in faster. The meteor once again shattered the sound barrier.
Out of other options, Neji reached out his hand, and slapped the meteor aside.
The meteor, shockingly enough, gave way.
Neji had only a moment to recognize that it had been designed to give way before the meteor plunged deep into the empty field – and Hazou's palm met Neji's face.
The field cracked and shattered into oblivion, flaking away into nothingness as the illusion of the Preta Path collapsed before them. Neji was drawn along with Hazou's line of motion, falling into an endless space.
"Neji, destiny isn't a fixed thing! A destiny is a dream, and we have dreams so that we can achieve it! To surpass this Preta Path, take your dream, and use it as fuel!"
Behind Hazou, the flames of his chakra, even filtered through another source, brought a kaleidoscope of visions behind him. Jiraiya and Mari's wedding. A happy family dinner. Hazou and Akane's wedding. Akane and Ino's wedding. Shinji returning to the family. His own son, beating him at rock-paper-scissors.
"Now, Neji!" Hazou said, voice cracking in an exulted emotional high. "Burn your own dream!"
Neji's slackened face seemed to fall away behind him, tumbling in the buffeting winds of the Preta Path's dreamscape. Hazou reached out his hand, but they were too far apart to reach. He watched as Neji tumbled further and further, until he was nothing but a speck.
Then Neji ignited into a white flame. Even if the flame was a colorless white, in its wake came the dreams Neji told himself he'd never get to see. Even if they were indistinct, and Hazou couldn't pick out the events in his eye, they were
there.
And in front of him, Neji's hand reached out and grabbed onto Hazou's.
"Universal Transport!" the two shouted in unison. "Destination: Deva's Path, the Voyager team!"
with love and affection for
@eaglejarl i beat the update and am now out to get a victory lunch
