The Next World

I looked over at Kage who seemed to be distant from Riku and me. He was walking ahead of us, leading the way through the forest and instructing us just fine but he seemed so robotic and detached in his actions. It was like he had become soulless. The fiery passionate spirit he once held was gone.





I turned my head behind me to glance at Riku who gave me a confused look. I pointed to Kage and he looked even more confused. I shook my head and said "We need to stop."





Kage looked behind me and I got a good look in to his eyes for the first time since he had killed Zoul and shortened Daius' suffering. His eyes had lost their fiery warmth. They were cold and hallow.





"What is it?" He asked me. His voice was flat and emotionless. There wasn't a trace of any feeling in it.





"You need to just let the walls come down. You need to let yourself feel what’s in your heart." I told him.





"I have a question for you Sora." Kage said his voice still flat and emotionless.





"Ask it." I said.





"Riku is in your arms dieing slowly of a painful wound. It could take him several painful minutes to bleed to death. You kill him out of mercy because you love him. You did it because you love him but you still did it. How would you deal with it?" Kage asked me.





I held the contact I had with his eyes. I just stared in to them, lost in my thoughts, as I tried to come up with an answer. I stayed like that thinking for a long time until I finally said "I don't know what I would do but I wouldn't shut what it made me feel away. No matter how much pain I felt from my emotions I would never cast aside my heart. The day I quit feeling will be the day that I die."





He looked at me and said "I was hurt because of the way I felt so I'll never feel about anything again."





"It's impossible not to feel. When I was in the deepest darkness and thought I had cast my heart aside I still felt. Even if you say you aren't feeling anything that's a lie. You're feeling something right now. Pain is an emotion as well as a psychical feeling." Riku said stepping next to Kage.





"You're right. I think I'll go hunt down something for us to eat for dinner. I'll consider the offer you guys gave me while I'm hunting." Kage said looking away from us and over to the side. I followed his gaze and saw a small cave. "You and Riku can build a fire in there for me to cook whatever I can find and kill for us." He finished as he ran off in the distance.





Riku and I gathered some wood and built a fire in the cave. Once the fire was built I looked over at Riku who was sitting across from me and I sighed.





"Why does he affect me so much? It's different with him then with anyone else. This is the first time we've ever offered to take someone back with us." I asked Riku.





"Maybe because you love him." Riku said to me. I looked at him and saw there was seriousness in his eyes. I loved Riku and he knew that.





"I can't love him. I love you." I told Riku. Riku looked at me and shook his head.





"I never said you didn't love me. He's so much like you were at his age that you've probably developed a brotherly sort of love for him or maybe you love the both of us. I know that I feel more then friendship to him but I still love you more then anything in the world."





"So you think that we love each other and we love him too? Is it possible to love more then one person at a time?" I asked Riku in confusion.





"It's possible and it happens more often then not but at the same time it's not something that a lot of people approve of. There's three way relationships and even open relationships. I know I love you, I know you love me, and I know we both care about Kage. Let's just see what happens and we'll work from there." Riku told me.





I gave him a nod and crawled over to rest my head on his chest. "Like I said I know I love you." I said as I pulled him down and kissed him softly on the lips.





He kissed me back and said "I love you too." as he wrapped his arms around me.





We sat there holding each other until we heard the sound of hard breathing outside. We looked and saw Kage carrying what looked like a tangle of long vines. It wasn't until he was right in front of us that we saw he was carrying a few large snakes.





He tossed them aside and sat down. When he sat I saw that he was bleeding slightly from his leg were his armor plating had been cut away





"You're hurt." I said as I crawled away from Riku and over to Kage so I could inspect his wound. There were four puncture wounds in a small rectangle on his leg. They were bleeding but not very much.





"It's just a bite from a non-venomous snake. It hurts a little but I'll survive. If I wanted to die I would cut my head off so there wouldn't be any way of saving me." Kage said as he looked at his wound.





"Do you?" Riku asked as I walked over to the snakes to inspect them.





"Do I what?" Kage asked confusion in his voice.





"Do you want to die?" I asked Kage as I turned my attention back to him.





"I only wanted to die because I'm a killer but I've only lived fifteen years of life and only three of them were spent as a killer." Kage said.





"I thought you were fourteen." I said.





"It's the fourteenth day of the second month. This is my fifteenth birthday. Three years of killing to be one of the people who destroy this foul world of hate and pain to leave for one were I'm free to live a peaceful life if the offer still stands." Kage said.





"Of course the offer still stands. You're going to be living with me and Sora in our house. It'll be the three of us and whatever the world can throw our way." Riku said, moving to sit on Kage's left side.





I moved to sit on his right and said "We've figured out why we made the offer in the first place and we think it's going to work perfectly with you sharing a home with us."





Kage gave a nod and said "Dai told me before we left if something were to happen to him he would want me to be happy and not in mourning. I'll always feel sorrow for him but I will honor his last request and pursue happiness. I'll go with the two of you to were it is you've come from and leave this life I lived in this world of hell behind me."





I smiled at Riku and he pulled the two of us in a hug. I returned the embrace but Kage looked from one of us to the other with a confused look on his face a few times before he smiled.





We stayed there holding each other for a while before I heard a growling sound. I looked at Kage who said "That was my stomach. I think I should cook those snakes now." I gave a nod and we let go of him.





He laid three large rocks around the fire and sat the body of a snake on each rock. We watched and listened to them cook. I noticed Kage was looking from me to Riku and then to himself before he gave a nod and said quietly "I might as well."





"Might as well what?" I asked Kage.





"My ranking marks are painted on to my face with magical inks. At the assigning of their first ranking a warrior is taught the incantation to renounce their status as a warrior. It's usually done at the time of retirement or in dying breath. Since I won't be going back to the village I might as well remove my second tier general's markings." He said as looked at the snakes.





"Sounds like a plan. When are you going to do it?" I asked him.





"It can only be done at the time of a great injury or done facing the rising sun. When you wake up in the morning my face will be unmarked." Kage said as he poked one of the snakes and smiled.





"They're edible." Kage said as he pulled the shorter of his swords and cut the snakes in half down the middle. He handed the meat from one of them to me, the meat from the other to Riku, and began to eat one for himself.





Once we had finished our meal we sat down and watched the sunset and the moon begin to rise. We walked back to the cave and laid down. I was almost asleep when I read Riku let out a low growl of frustration.





"What is it Riku?" I asked him.





"Not what who. It's Ansem. He's outside and he's waiting for me." Riku said as he stood up with moon light in his left hand and his soul eater in his right. I got up to follow him outside but he looked at me and shook his head.





"I don't want you to see what I'm going to do to him Sora. Please stay in here for me. We're going away from here, we're going to fight, I'm going to kill him, and then I'll come back for you. I promise you I'll survive this." Riku said.





I pulled him in to my arms and kissed him on his lips. We stayed holding and kissing each other for what felt like an eternity spent in heaven before I pulled away from Riku and said "We can finish later. I think that gives you more of a reason to come back."





He smiled at me and said "I'll come back for you and that's a promise." After he said those words he walked out of the cave.





Kage looked at me and said "I know he'll be back. Anyone would return after a goodbye kiss like that."





"I hope you're right." I said as I stared at the entrance to the cave.