The Sun does remember the last time he saw himself; but, he fully understands that that is not important anymore. Nothing really matters in the spiral of madness. He is alone, but not alone. Other beings inhabit this place of insanity; beasts without shape or form. They are the Dreams; the ones who remind him of the things he cannot (willnot) chose to remember. When they surround him he digs a grave and screams a prayer and wishes them away. Then there are the faceless, asexual bodies made of flame. These are Temptation; and they beckon him into oblivion - into the Fire Rivers which lead to the Bitch’s Mouth. They march in file and follow him in packs; giggling and whispering in voices that make his skin crawl.

He is a being of solitude in a place where he has none. He does not need light or warmth in the Darkness Which Is Madness. He lives inside of it; not striking a fire because it draws the Beast which lives at it’s epicenter and because it  keeps the night at bay. Nor does he need speech and thought in the Primal Undertow. Nothing would speak to him if they could. He is an animal of the Id; a miser who cracks smiles at unheard melodies and a neanderthal with matted, wild cornflower hair and eyes as cold and hard as frozen quicksilver. In the Primordial Hell the Sun crawls on it’s belly beneath the Forest of Suicides; the one place in his Hell which used to be the smallest grove. He closes his ears to the temptation of the knife against the skin. Once past, he traverses the cold plains of Pandemonium; every step sapping his strength and every movement causing another memory to solidify in his breath and shatter on the winds. In here, he is safe because cold distracts the Beast of DIS which follows him everyplace, no matter how far or how fast he runs.

He huddles in the snow and tells himself that everything will be okay; even as the snows melts with infernal footsteps and he falls into a blackened hole of nothingness.

The Sun is also a storyteller. He has a tale and a signature that only belong to him and they are the only thing he remembers anymore. He scratches his tale on blackened, charred walls crisscrossed by sewer work and wonders why his chest tightens... <i?There once was a man who dreamt he would protect everyone...He writes in hieroglyphs only he and the Beast understand. There is no paint or ink in this place so every word is written in blood which is bruisedforgottensore.... He lived in a place with many, many beautiful leaves... There is a face, shadowy and insubstantial, and there is a feeling, warm and fulfilling. That is the only thing he can fully recognize in the haze and blackness of his memories...Then came the Beast... His brow furrows and far off, something roars in a voice which would shake the foundations of the heavens...And She only lived to tear down everything he had ever had....The Beast shifts through the darkness of the Primal; the air rippling in myopias of crystalized air and the onyx shadows bowing in macabre reverence all around her. She is hunting him yet again.... She had no name; but, the people of his world gave it one... The Nine flutter behind her in deluge; rolling back and forth like white-capped infernos or windswept banners.

She sifts through the madness and the darkness with serrated scythes; calling out his name in a gravelly voice that split veins in blossoms of scarlet and which is the whisper of a thousand different fires. He still writes, not knowing if the scent of his blood will draw her close or push the shadows farther back.... But, the man was strong...Strength and cunning are the only things that matter anymore. He has forgotten the kindness and the pain. The trials and the joy. He is a beast of instinct and fear while the Beast is a demon of lust and damnation... He knew how to protect everyone he loved, though their salvation would come at a hefty price... A crystal star twinkles in the darkness, running down tanned, slash-marked cheeks and splashing into a rust-worked sewer ground that is too damp to justify it with sound. The Beast’s laughter echoes like a thousand crackling embers. She can taste the salt of his tears...This man never regretted what he did... Not ever. ...He did not blame his fate on circumstance... The blood runs down the walls and pools at his knees. His brittle fingernails crack like broken twigs in the hands of carefree children...The man shaped his own life with his own decisions and nothing more...The Beast’s eyes are upon him now. They are dark and emerald; broken by spikes which shoot from the iris. There is madness and hatred in those eyes. There is a black, eldritch chaos that would destroy the world if only to hear the pretty white-noise...So the man does not regret that which he left behind to defeat the Beast.... Not at all...He only lives, and hates, and runs... Hatred is an emotion he never knew this well in life but it is one he utterly embodies now. ...<i?Because, over all things, the Beast hates the prey it cannot catch... This story has been written in a thousand places, on a thousand rock faces, and it is always the same. The Beast is always compelled to read; always curious to peer inside the author’s mind and see if she has taken everything away from him...Another roar, closer this time, and the darkness literally reverberates... And she finds that she has not. Even though she feeds on his memories, he steals the crumbs which fall from her gluttonous mouth and hordes them like the dead horde their secrets.

The man still grasps to what he was and who he lived for. He slashes his name, so long-ago forgotten, in places where the Beast can see and he hopes her anger will keep her occupied....

Another roar, echoing inside of his eardrums.

...Because now, every second counts.

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He celebrates his death annually; finding niches (graves) in the ground and hoping that the Beast will not find him. This place (hell) is timeless and eternal; but, counting the unimportant things keeps him marginally sane. Today, he turns as old as the man with the stern face. The man who had taught him to be who he was. Again; he does not remember the name. The memory is too tattered and frayed; all he remembers is the feeling of a stern, kind man watching over him. The memory fades. Every year she comes and now is no different. He hears the soft beating of mighty wings and swallows hard as the Beast goes quiet and the atmosphere goes still. He knows that she is everywhere; that she, the Life-Snuffer, the sister of Dream, the Angel with black wings; is everywhere; but, he also knows that he is a special case. Death is a four letter word that rhymes with fox, and hate, and Uzumaki and she cannot have him unless he wills it so... So he runs, like always; and now, begun his misery.

She follows him with silently echoing footfalls. He races down sewer-worked hallways; always breathing, always moving, never stopping when he falls or slips. He sweats salt and then blood ad yet she still follows him the thousand of miles he travels without a singe faltering breath nor step. Along the way, he hears her at work, and pities those who enter the sunless lands.

‘You haven’t been taking good care of yourself, have you Mr. Sanin?’

‘ *hic* It don’ mattah. We all die in the end... Ju’ lookit the old-hag . *hic* ’

‘Idiot.’

‘ Look whose talkin’ * hic * At leas’ people liked me for what I * hic * did for a living. * hic* ‘

He hears the soft beating of mighty wings...

‘.....................’

‘...I ...I did it...’

‘I’m...I was... blind... and...he had them... and... and...’

‘Um...’

‘I’m blind...First the Snake...And...Now the Weasel is...’

‘Wait...Why is he walking away...?’

‘Ssssh, everything will be alright.’

‘No...’

She takes the boy in her embrace and cries real tears. Again, he hears the beating of wings.

“Baka ”

‘So cute...’

“Let me check if Kakashi is asleep first ”

‘Hey...Here comes mom!’

“...Hurry up I want to make another one already!”

‘Wait... But... But I just got here...Do I have to leave already?’

“.................................................”

‘ ‘Fraid so. ’

As a cherry blossomed haired woman and a blonde child the Sun felt he should’ve known cry; the beating of wings...

He still runs.

Death will not catch him and he will not rest until the Beast is dead. He passes mosaics of men and women who, like him, have disjointed themselves from the Eternal Wheel.... They whisper in tongues he does and does not understand, pleading with him to end his futile run. He does not listen to the man with the crown of thorns who is attached to the cross and who is bleeding from his side. He leaps over the grey bonfire which burns the false saint and ignores her anguished, screaming pleas. The man strapped to the mountain who is feasted on... The demon-king sealed inside of a boulder... The beast bound by head and foot to a pillar of salt... He passes them all, snarling and screaming that he will not go the easy route of oblivion. She still traces his every step; her smile never faltering. His breath comes in pants and gasps because he cannot remember ever running away this far and this fast.

She has never been this persistent.

In the center he feels he can lose her...Then, the other comes. The Nullifier. The Beast of Nine-Tails. The Bitch of flames. He cringes in pain as the inferno she embodies licks at his skin and impedes him; charring him black and grey and dead. The paths at the center of the Spiral are all blocked by a tail. She will not let him pass. Her black-lined smile stretches as he is burned. She wants to watch him squirm and die. Every hallway and exit is filled with volcanic flames and he is suddenly in the center of a fiery maelstrom; screaming his hatred to the sky because that is all the trapped animal can do.

She comes before him in her human form. Her jade eyes smolder. The Bitch nips at his lips and licks at his body as if she loved him. She fucks his burning body endlessly; screaming pleasure and pain and everything they are to the sky. The beating of wings echoes around them and the fires suddenly usher out as if they never existed.

He turns in horror as the Bitch straddling him smiles a small, evil smile.

‘Hello Death’

She is pale and beautiful; with clothes made of satin shadows and a complexion as alabaster as the men and women who venerate her yet are never ready to except her. She is calm and collected; her smirk hinting at thoughts both perverted and innocent. His dark skin pales as Death passes the Nine-tails and strokes her muzzle almost lovingly.

‘So, Arashi, are you ready yet?’, her voice reminds him of the woman he once loved and only in that instant, only when she speaks, does he actually accept that he has done his job; that he has saved everyone he will ever say.

It frightens him.

Death is before me today;
Like the recovery of a sick man,
Like going forth into a garden after a sickness...

She stops him this time, not smiling, not following. Her arms wrap around his waist like gentle ivory serpents.

‘You need to stop running from who you are...’

Death is before me today;
Like the odor of myrrh,
Like sitting under a sail in a good wind...

‘I have to protect them all...’

In his hand he holds a blazing headband. He clutches it so tight that it cuts into his skin.

Death is before me today;
Like the course of a stream,
Like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house...

‘You have done everything in you’re power...’

She kisses his ear and places two coins in his pocket.

‘No I have not. The Beast still lives.’

‘Only because you will it so, Uzumaki Arashi...’

The man looks to the sky and wonders, for the first time.

‘You are not freedom nor salvation.’

Death is before me today;
Like the home that a man longs to see after years spent as a captive...

‘I am only Death, and I come for everyone, eventually.’

...And he hears it...
The faint beating of wings...



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Finis


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:: Let go ::