The God from the Beyond

"REACH OUT TO ME,

BEAUTIFUL SOUL-CHILD,

TARNISHED BY THE HATRED OF THE WORLD..."

The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, and each word and meaning made itself known in that liminal consciousness, a state between dream and the waking world. Mirai didn't know whether to recoil or to run, and so she hugged her brothers closer, and asked the most sensible question allowed to her.

"Who... who are you?"

The voice and the hand replied.

"I AM THE ONE AND THE ALL,

THE BEGINNING AND THE END,

YOUR SAVIOR AND FURY,

CHAMPION OF THE DISPOSSESSED."

Mirai did not speak nor respond, but all portents established the voice as not of mortal origin; it was from a MAHA, a divine being.

"DO YOU WISH TO ESCAPE THE DESTINY THAT AWAITS YOUR BROTHERS, AND YOURSELF?"

Mirai cautiously nodded, never letting her eyes off of that suspicious hand.

"THEN I ALLOW YOU THUS: ACCEPT ME AND SWEAR BY ME, AND I SHALL GRANT YOU THE POWER OF FOREVER: TO LIVE, TO SEEK, TO SAVE THOSE LIKE YOU."

Mirai blinked, and the hand turned to open its palm. A sunlike warmth emanated from it, this time with a soothing scent of cypress, but there was an incongruity to it which churned a revulsion in the depths of her unconscious.

Mirai rubbed her eyes, and inquired back with the voice of her soul. 

"How? What powers do you speak of?"

"THE POWER TO RIVAL THE FOUR MAHAMASTRA; THE POWER TO WIELD THE VERY ROOTS OF EXISTENCE. YOU SHALL BECOME A DIVINITY UNTO YOURSELF."

"And what is the cost to your power?"

"YOUR LOYALTY."

"For how long a time?"

"UNTIL YOU FIND IT SATISFIED."

"What does your loyalty demand?"

"THE PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED OF THIS WORLD."

"What wicked peoples? Who?" Mirai enquired further, wishing to know more.

"THOSE WHO WISHED YOU HARM, THOSE WHO FRAMED YOUR FAMILY. THOSE WITH POWER WHO PREY UPON THE WEAK; THOSE WHO INFLICT SUFFERINGS UPON THE WORLD."

"My family was framed?"

"O, SPRING-CHILD, SURELY YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN. OR DID IT CAUSE PAIN TO ACCEPT THAT THE PEOPLES OF HEIAN WOULD BETRAY YOUR FAMILY AS THUS?"

Mirai's heart buckled in her frame. She'd never wanted to believe the soul-rending prospect that what happened was not an accident, but something pernicious that was orchestrated by their rivals. 

If it was an accident, she could blame nothing but fate, and what person can fight against fate? But if mankind could be blamed, and she did not try to seek justice, then she would die full of anguish and hatred for she could have done something about it. There was something to that anguished desire which made Mirai cower, cower at her own soul; she was afraid of herself, and what she might do for revenge. This divine being, whoever it was, knew exactly what she thought, and felt.

"HAVE THEM SWALLOW THEIR OWN POISON. 

HAVE THEM FEEL THE PAIN OF YOUR FAMILY. 

HAVE THEM BE BRANDED AS TRAITORS THEMSELVES. 

HAVE THEM DIE AN UNFAIR DEATH, 

THAT RETURNS THEIR KARMIC SIN WITH RIGHTEOUS FURY!"

Mirai's soul weighed the offer. She... probably won't be here in a week. 

What more did she have to lose?

But no... the pact the divine being offered smelled too sweet... overbearing... like honeyed-milk, beginning to rot in the day's Sun.

"WHY DO YOU HESITATE, BEAUTIFUL CHILD, SHE WHO IS ABOUT TO DIE? ARE YOU AFRAID OF POWER MORE THAN DEATH?"

"What'll happen after I accept your hand? What'll happen to my brothers? My dad? They'll be safe, right? Will I be allowed to exact the revenge I want? Or will I be forced to do what you tell me?"

At that question the voice became silent. 

And like bubbles from a spring, some deep memory from her past sprung forth; a memory of an ancient evil that her father once told, that her father once cautioned her about, about beings that reached out to people in the troughs of their desperation.

Perhaps she was staring at such an evil, eye-to-eye.

"Why do you not give an answer, if you are a MAHA?"

"DO THE LIVES OF YOUR FAMILY MEAN MORE THAN RIDDING THE WICKED OF THIS WORLD?"

Mirai almost bit her tongue. What kind of sick question was that?

"Of course it does! I love my family more than I want revenge!"

"MY CHILD, WITH THE POWER YOU SHALL POSSESS, YOU SHALL BE ABLE TO RETURN ANYONE FROM THE DEAD. WORRY NOT FOR WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM; BE DELIGHTED IN WHAT YOU COULD DO, WHAT WRONGS YOU COULD RIGHT FOR CHILDREN LIKE YOURSELF."

It was convincing, but the air with which this divinity dismissed Mirai's concern for her family betrayed a fatal flaw. She had to speak her mind.

"'Wrongs I could right'? Even if it means I'll have to do what you say, even things that are wrong? That's what you mean by loyalty, right?"

"YOU WILL CHOOSE DEATH INSTEAD OF REACHING OUT FOR THE HAND THAT GIVES YOU SALVATION?"

"From what you've said, well... you only said that I'll be able to have my revenge. If you are a MAHA of goodness, you surely would've given me your word that you won't order me to take the lives of my father and brothers. But you didn't. If the cost to my revenge is that everyone around me ends up hurt – even other innocent people – then I can't take it. I won't take it because my name is Hinozawa."

The MAHA from beyond the veil seemed to scoff.

"THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE, CHILD. DEATH AWAITS YOUR FAMILY EVEN IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT."

That was true. If she did not accept the power of this divinity, her family wouldn't survive, let alone herself. At the same time, there was no guarantee that the loyalty this MAHA demanded gave room for her principles.

"Can you promise me that your loyalty won't make me harm people who've done no wrong?"

Silence.

"Would you offer this same power to someone else, even if it means I die?"

More silence.

"Answer me! He who speaks like a MAHA!"

A deep cacophony of dissatisfaction began to fill the room, and when the MAHA spoke back it was of a thunderous quality, burrowing into her head and piercing her conscience.

"ASK YOURSELF THUS: WHEN HAS THE WORLD EVER CARED FOR YOU AND THE INNOCENT? YOU INSIST IN VERSES OF GOOD WHEN CRUELTY STARES AT YOU IN THE FACE, WRITHING LIKE A MOUSE IN THE MAW OF A SNAKE, AFRAID YOUR STRUGGLES WILL MAR THOSE ALREADY IN ITS BELLY. I AM THE HUNTER, THE RESCUER, THE SAVIOR OF YOUR SOUL, I HAVE COME THUS TO FREE YOU FROM ITS JAWS. TAKE MY HAND, AND HAVE COURAGE TO EARN YOUR FREEDOM, HAVE COURAGE TO GAIN POWER INFINITE, HAVE COURAGE TO KNOW TRUE GOOD AND EVIL! I PROMISE YOU THE VISION OF FOREVER..."

Mirai clutched her head and brought her brothers closer, away from the hand. She looked at it squarely in the eye, mustering every bit of effort to deny the perversion of the good she knew in her heart.

"I refuse. No MAHA has ever promised such a thing like that. If a power as infinite as you say was possible, the FOUNDERS would have already made the world a perfect place."

"THE FOUNDERS NEVER SOUGHT. THE FOUNDERS YOU WORSHIP ARE BUT FALSE IDOLS, AND IN THEIR TWILIGHT YOU FLOUNDER, IN THEIR SHADOWS HUMANKIND IS ENSLAVED – FORBIDDEN TO DREAM, UNABLE TO SEE FOR ITSELF WHERE ETERNITY BEGINS."

The voice of the divine figure reverberated in her conscious mind and threatened to seize it entire. It took all the efforts of her will to dam the flood of his rushing words, which rang as true as ice was cold and generosity was good. 

The divine being was right... if the FOUNDERS were all so powerful, then... why haven't they answered her prayers thus far?

From her?

From her brothers? 

From her family? 

Why did the world overflow with such injustice and suffering? 

Has the world always been like this? 

Why was the world always like this? 

Mirai shuddered in phantom pain, her head threatening to split open with a magnitude of pain she'd never endured. And yet she grit her teeth and dug into her sole; and stared back, mustering a lonely fire in herself against the thunderous divinity.

At her resistance the hand charred, blackened, its fingernails lengthening into terrible viridescent talons, transmogrified into a form that must have been the true shape of the divine being all along. Its talons sinuously grasped her shoulders and neck, and slowly brushed its sharp tip against her jugular.

"MIRAI HINOZAWA, A LONELY SUN, 

WEEP, WAIL, AND WRITHE ALL YOU WISH,

SEARCH EVERY DOOR 'TIL ALL ARE SHUT.

WHEN YOUR HOPE HAS BEEN BEATEN, THROWN, BURNT TO ASH,

YOUR HEART DRIVEN TO THE TRENCHES OF DESPAIR,

YOU WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO SEEK ME AGAIN,

FOR THAT IS YOUR DESTINY WRITTEN UPON TIME."

"KNOW ME THUS, FOR WHO I AM:

I AM THE VOICE IN THE DEEPEST OF YOUR NIGHTS.

I AM THE WHISPER AT THE BACK OF YOUR SOUL;

OF EVERY GRIEVING MOTHER AND EVERY GRIEVING CHILD;

OF EVERY MAN ABANDONED BY THE CRUELTY OF FATE.

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THERE, AT MANKIND'S BEHEST

I ALWAYS AM, AND I ALWAYS WILL.

FARE-WELL, SOUL-CHILD,

'TIL YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO FIND

MY PROMISE OF FOREVER."

The space in front of Mirai mended and with a breeze and a screech, the black hand was gone. There remained no more of it, the being from beyond. She had resisted falling to its promise of forever.

But at what cost? What did all of it mean?

Mirai could do nothing but weep with her brothers.