358. Season of light, 9

(Rose)

There's growing tension in the air.

Judge is in doubt. It thinks I'm bluffing mostly. It wants to believe it. But there's a shadow of a doubt floating around us, around me. What if some of the things I say were true?

I don't look scared. I'm not trembling.

Because I know what is true here.

J - You're not god.

R - Neither are you. But I've been in this world far longer than you. I know things you should have learned first instead of focusing on your ambition and identity. So do you choose to step down, stop and learn, or will you face me?

J - I will judge you for your sins.

I giggle and make another step toward him. Something changes in the air around us. Something it did not control. His domain is suddenly receding as I get closer. He can't see it, but he feels that something is changing.

J - What are you doing Rose? I don't wish to fight you.

R - I won't let you become a judge, because you don't know what you're doing.

J - You won't stop me from fulfilling my destiny. You're not the legend, you're only Rosemary Herson.

I laugh. I make one other step closer to it. I'm opening my arms, amused.

R - You made the same mistake that I did myself, over and over since I came to be. Rose Herson indeed was human. But humanity died a long time ago, and I, I am not Rose.

The biggest mistake I've made in this world, was trusting my own memories to recognise what I thought was real.

Since the beginning, I've been something else, with the memories of another one. I may be the heir of Rose and of her identity, but I'm not exactly her. Judge fell into the same misconception about everything he thinks he knows, trusting what things appear to be from memories. They're not.

R - You thought I 'm human. Don't you?

I'm standing in front of him as I shake his blind misconception.

J - You are human, Rose.

R - Wrong again. I'm actually a daiûa, quite like you. But I'm older than you, much older. I can see things for what they are when your eyes still haven't opened.

My simple words are shaking its confidence, at least a little. Perhaps a lot, because its identity is based on so little truly. Judge was only born yesterday. It's scared as I shake its weak beliefs.

Their obsessions. Their psychological inertia, it makes them rush ahead, oblivious of their flaws and mistakes.

I too rush ahead recklessly, but at least here I know a little better. Just enough.

And I know what I am in this world. Even if Blume is not there with me anymore, I'm Rose Blume.

And like every other daiûa, my will is my power, and I can extend it.

I raise an open hand, and light appears above as if I held a glow.

Judge is terrified. I've created light. I have power beyond my own body.

I simply always limited myself to the human I thought I was, until an unexpected friend revealed the dire truth to me in plain sight.

I have roots in the other world. I've always been in between. Always.

As a daiûa whom always thought herself to be a human, that's what I was and what I limited myself to be.

But many doors have been revealed, forcefully, and I've been beyond, more than once.

And now I know how to use that knowledge as a strength. I've learnt how to use that water I can't even see or feel.

I've learnt how to reveal myself if I so chose. Not quite my thorns, but the power behind them recently.

I've learnt the hard way to see and use that extended aspect of reality normal senses can't perceive.

On the other end, Judge is completely lost in the obscurity of its own certainties that limit him.

Fight or flee. Face your demise or accept to evolve. I'm judging you now for what you intent to become.

Because I won't tolerate a new monster to rise because of me. I may not be fair, but that will be.

That's my wish and will now.

Judge made his choice.

To believe in himself instead of me. To believe in his own strength and righteousness, instead of mine.

To believe he was a god, and that I was only human.

Sparks exploded, and we fought like the odd beings we both were.

~

Judge's power was still new-born, coming from its own flesh and the artefacts it swallowed from us.

It hadn't the chance to grow yet in a way that could absorb the invisible energy that is ambient in the air. Like I do now. More like plants, or other beings-like-her that breathe that invisible water.

My mind unlocked, as if I was giving in to my thorns and letting my abyss rise. It came as if I was suddenly using a different set of lungs that I never willingly and consciously used before. I knew they were there, and they worked along my normal lungs to filter more than just air. I could breathe in something else, and use it like magic.

As light exploded between us, it was just as if a body fought instead of me, and consumed oxygen to move and push, but in a different spectrum.

And the more I was aware of these processes, the more alive it became. Light grew as I breathed more energy into it.

Judge was only obsessed, unable to do otherwise, unable to realise it headed into an abyss of burning light I was igniting.

My focus shifted away slightly from my standing body and toward that blinding volume of light. I could suddenly manipulate it at will as if I was holding it between my hands.

The energy in the air had begun spiralling around me as I consumed it. I felt as if I was suddenly floating in the middle of a sea, which water's obeys anyone's will.

I controlled these flows now consciously, bending them easily to my will, for there was no other competing awareness for it around us. Judge was still only a beast that simply could imitate human's speech and mind.

It was only a primitive thought built on a completely random identity, unfit for this world.

It wasn't even quite an animal with thought and self-awareness. It was a far more primitive life form, but it wasn't obvious because it tried to imitate the behaviour of intelligent ones. It did so by moving pieces of knowledge it had gathered randomly, but never understood.

Everything Judge had done and said was as if a child learnt by heart sentences of a foreign language it did not know the meaning of, and yelled back in random mixes. Judge had never truly been self-aware as a living being. It was an illusion from instinct.

It tried, to create a consciousness and identity for itself. It tried.

But it couldn't evolve just from that and so fast, it couldn't hear me, it couldn't get that spark of intelligence that gives doubts and learns from experience.

I erased it in a flow of burning light. The flows lifting me and obeying my will concentrated themselves as they transformed into light in front of me. I pushed a wave sharp and bright enough to erase everything ahead.

It spread in a flash, and there was nothing left behind.

It was already over.

I turned the faucet off and soon my feet returned to the ground.

My hands were white as snow for a moment, until my eyes recovered from the blinding sight I had caused.

A spell from witches, far too powerful for humans to wield.

I was reminded of Licht as I was acting like that. I judged Judge...

I was not fair, perhaps. I have made a choice, for my morality, for what I believe should be.

I cannot claim I did the objective right thing. I did what I thought was right and best. Nothing else.

I'm not quite human anymore, but I certainly will not claim that I have become a god...

I'm just me.

~