::About Oceania Azure::
A new Smoke Twines tale that follows Tyeko, a charrie from the original Smoke Twines and others.
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Imagine a world with constant war. Imagine a world where madmen control vast empires. Imagine a world where a mere vapor can kill. This is the world of Oceania Azure.
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Smoke Twines: Oceania Azure
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Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Smoke hung, a veil across the carcass of a city.
Tokyo was flat. No structures pierced the empty sky, now ill, plagued with clouds like noxious blemishes upon a face.
No hills rose, no valley's dropped. It had been reduced to a common denominator, a infertile field extirpated violently of life.
Wind tentatively stroked the dusted remains, probed the smoke like the nervous fingers of a lover, like a child astounded at a broken toy.
However, it was not long before this changed.
It was not long before, like a figure waking, someone pulled the remains of dust aside, and slowly stood, a solitary rise on a featureless plain, visible for miles as he struggled to his feet, and swept the crusted remains from his body. It had been a car that saved him; its imploded ceiling applying just enough reflection and tension to protect him against the wave which swept away his world.
Visible as he was, the antithesis of his surroundings, defying convention and raising towards the Heavens, there was no one to see him.
Never again in Tokyo would there be someone to see him.
But stand he did, staring slowly around him, a strange calm mingling with the tears within his eyes. Stand he did upon that desolate field, a solitary hand reaching upwards from the grave, a single evolution upwards standing stark against the nothingness and the dust which riled against his body.
Stand he did facing a new and empty world, as high above him dust and smoke began to slowly meet and form a cloud.
The End.
60.
Tyeko runs.
Bodies scattered across the floor, he avoids them, sidesteping, never ceasing, propelling forwards, every ounce of concentration focused, forming a singularity of thought propelling him onwards. Through the labrynth of the underground, the stairway, he strikes it without hesitation, compensating incline with an increase in speed, one floor, two floors, three floors, four floors.
45.
A guard, stumbling down them, raising his gun, Tyeko rolls as bullets fill the now absent space, he hurls himself upwards, one bullet after another tossed carlessly in his direction, he climbs upwards, another floor, at the soldier himself, one motion upwards, he snaps his neck as carlessly as distinguishing a candle, catches the pistol which attempts to liberate itself from possession, upwards further, another floor, the last floor, a doorway, a sound---
Tyeko hurls himself blindly to the left as the scream of the machine gun fills his mind. Rotating, eyes slits, knives, he levels his pistol with it, one shot, two shots, fire, burning, light, he topples backwards through the doorway, rolls, a soldier, face surprised, astounded, suddenly empty, blood lashes artistically across the ceiling, determination drags him to his feet, he dissappears down the hallway, one turn after another,
30.
mind devoid of thought, instinct his only virtue, a single mistake in turn fatal, emptiness, white, a soldier, a soldier, his hands raise blindly and relinquish a soul's duty to the flesh, faster, faster, lights echoing above, inverting, reverting, a stream of light as white and engulfing as the blindness of his mind, doorways pulse like the lights of a tunnel, another, another, onwards
10.
The lobby, blood, shattered remains of flesh and stone, the doorway, run, has to run, no time, through the doorway
9.
light, light and darkness, scattered ruins, a building, destroyed, the ocean, he can't run into the ocean
8.
but where else can he run, no where, there's no where, Irieshu, there's no where, where do you want me to go
7.
there's nothing here for me
6.
Run. Run as if you could outrace the past. Tyeko's eyes roll, everything so slow, so slow, towards the expanse of Tokyo
5.
without a second consideration, his legs propel him forwards
4.
Past the palace, into Tokyo, into the heart, away from the ocean, away from the ocean, straight streets
3.
He finds one, runs, has to run
2.
as if he can outrace
1.
the
0.
past.
It began like this, it's oddly suiting that it should end like this.
Akira gazes at Irieshu with the mingled respect and hatred that has always infected his countenance like a cyclical disease, "You took my son from me."
Through the stone and Earth, Irieshu feels the boy flee, each step another step towards an independence which would shape the psychotically celerious approach of a new world, "He's not your Son, anymore."
"You'd claim him as your own?" Akira struggles to resurrect his hatred, his rage, yet the box throbs red once more as if in warning and rebuke.
"No. Tyeko is no one's Son. He's never known a father, only people trying to use him and kill him, which is what makes him so valuable. Because he doesn't know he's never known a father, he merely believes that's what father's do. So, when he attempts to play father to the world, he'll have no trouble trying to use and kill those in it...and he'll have to, in order to save it. It's all on his shoulders now. You destroyed the world, Akira, and now he's going to fix it."
Akira's lips curl, "You bastards, always believing you could play God, shape it as you like, and never doubting for a moment that your "ideal" could be flawed."
Irieshu's eyes lower to Akira's own, as the box quakes, uttering a horrific rumble which steadily crescendos to a malevolent roar, "You and I were always the same, Akira. But now someone is going to get to play God, will get to reshape the world. I just hope I made him hate us enough."
"Ha. If you couldn't Irieshu," Akira whispers, as tendrils of light begin to erupt like shots of steam from the box, "No one could."
And with that, they disappear into light.
Tyeko feels the Earth quake.
RUN BOY. RUN.
Around him, in a peripheral sea, people lift their heads, stare nervously like animals of the herd, clutch their children close as laughter in the streets cease, and a single boy rushes past them.
“Father,” he said, “will these men ever come back?”
“They are expendable, my son.” Said He.
“But… so many men, father!”
Akira’s lips curled. “I doubt they’ll see the end of the War.”
“Father… this is… twenty thousand men!”
“It is war, my son. People die in wars. They fight…
He hears it, hears the sound as the world goes white, the horrific scream of tendons of steel twisted, evaporating. He can't outrace it, he can't outrace sound and light, within seconds it will catch him, sweep him blindly into the infinite of servitude to natural whim...
His only chance is to hide.
His eyes leap from street side to side, nothing, nothing...
There.
An alleyway.
Outlined in police tape, it draws his attention, a shimmering beacon of hope, he hurls himself over the tape, hurtles down an alleyway, rocky, suicidal to walk down let alone run, faster, faster, the roar increasing, he could hear it...
A car. Sitting there, like a rejected soul in purgatory, hull rusted, a solitary car, collapsed inwards, crushed, but his only hope, the roar, a wave, approaching, foaming, gravity driving it downards...
Nearly rending the door from it's corroded hinges, Tyeko collapses into it, slamming the door violently shut, burrowing downwards beneath the imploded ceiling, the sound now replacing all other conscious thought with its white roar...
He has only enough time to recongize the nearby remains of a ruined building and read the name of the street that would be his grave, Nagaki Lee, before the wave finally crashes down upon him, and the past is swept away.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Irieshu feels his legs break beneath him as he strikes the ground and repels forwards into a roll, a trail of blood left where his body grazes the floor. He raises his weapons level with the shadowed hallway before him, eyes piercing the curtain of darkness, pulling it aside like hands, slashing it apart like knives.
He hurtles down the hallway, twisted contusion of flesh and and bone which now consitute his legs issuing an agony that goes ignored. The slightest presence of motion, Irieshu raises his weapon and fires, a shriek, ignored, running, downwards, the hallway slants downwards, no time, no time, turn the corner...
The man waiting around it forces the shot-gun against Irieshu's chest.
For a moment, both figures freeze in a scene which appears to define a paradox.
And then the man compresses the trigger.
"Ty...Tyeko..." Akira's voice bleeds, betraying the wound he feels within as realization dawns upon him like a knife between the ribs, "What is this?"
Tyeko places a solitary finger upon the solitary button, staring into his father's eyes.
"Just an expression of my gratitude, Father."
Irieshu senses the left side of his body dissolve, as the discharge wipes it away as simply as blowing dust from glass.
The man feels Irieshu's pistol touch his temple, and then feels no more.
Irieshu collapses against the wall, the darkness opressive, crushing him downwards as pain and delusion struggles to force itself against the cracking dam of sanity within his skull.
Fragments of blood and flesh hang like melted wax against his exposed innards, as slowly, Tyeko, so slowly...he forces himself to stand.
He gazes down the silent hallway, darkness growing ever darker.
He gazes quietly down at his body, dilapidated and destroyed, derelict of any motivation but the impetus of his single passion...
Yes...he and it were dying.
Within minutes, the war would finally be over.
He threw what remained of himself down the hallway, towards the darkness and the light.
"You killed people...you tortured, mutilated, and destroyed for a conviction of nothing more than lust for power..."
"Ty...Tyeko...my son..."
"...I'm not your son, you mother-fucker. You don't have a son. You don't have a wife. You don't have a soul. And now, Father...now, I'm going to prove it to you."
The hallway ends...a doorway...unconsciously, his remaining arm raises, he dispatches the guards in their moment of astonishment...collapses against it...
"SON!!" Akira shrieks.
Insanity fills Tyeko's eyes.
A code...a password...of course the bastard would leave it to something as simple and impossible as this... a keypad...a code...the code...Irieshu stares at it...until, like a gush of water on fire, a sense of triumph fills his empty eyes...
"We're done, Father. We're done."
TYEKO.
"You really did love something, didn't you, you bastard?"
Irieshu strikes enter.
"KILL HIM!!' Akira shrieks.
The guards raise their weapons.
And, almost simultaneously, both of their heads snap back as their bodies collapse against the backdrop.
Irieshu stands in the doorway, body hanging limply forwards with the weight of his outstretched arm. The pistol topples limply, exhausted, from his fingers. It clatters to the floor.
Tyeko's finger rests poised above the button, as his eyes and his father conjoin upon the figure in the doorway.
"Irieshu...?" Tyeko whispers, lifting his hand away from the red.
"You." Akira's voice hisses.
Irieshu struggles to straighten his body, staggers forwards, eyes quivering in blind insanity...
Until, suddenly, the clouds within them fade, and for a moment, both figures, father and son, recongize the man they hated and loved.
"Tyeko..." Irieshu whispers, voice faded, dying like a winter breeze.
He strides quietly, body shattered like glass but still noble, to Tyeko's side, ignoring his father, apopoleptic with raging hatred, and bends quietly to one knee.
"Irieshu...I thought...you were dead." Tyeko whispered.
Irieshu's cold eyes meet his own for one last time, "I am."
"Tyeko, you need to listen very carefully to me. Do you know the way out of here?"
Tyeko nods, mind still recovering from the shock of percieving Irieshu, dead...he was dead...
"Good. You need to run, Tyeko," Irieshu's voice, so steady, Akira's eyes, all clarity of mind dissolved, shift between the two as his fingers curl and uncurl from fists, "You need to run as fast as you can. You need to get out of here, get out of Tokyo. Tyeko...there's something coming. Something that I have no choice but to leave in your hands. The world is about to be submitted into purgatory; it will be your duty to ensure that it emmerges clensed."
Tyeko's eyes shift unnaturally slow towards the metallic-blackness of the box.
"Yes, Tyeko. Tyeko...kid, it's up to you now. I'm about to put a bullet in the brain of this war; you will have your chance to raise to the forefront of leadership in the enusing chaos, and you must. Beyond that, I'm afraid there's not much more I can tell you, except you did far more than I ever expected, and fulfilled your promise beautifully. I remember looking at you at the start and believing my hopes in you were futile, that this moment we've reached now was an impossibility; I'm almost never wrong, but I couldn't hope for a better time for my judgement to be off. I'm going to take the past and me away now, Tyeko. I leave the future to you."
Without the slightest hesitation, Irieshu confidently impresses the red button with his thumb.
"Now run, Tyeko. Run as if you could outrace the past."
And the boy fled through the open doorway without another word, into the shadowed darkness, leaving just the two men and the faded lights.
"There's no point in being angry," Irieshu's passionless eyes raise to meet Akira's own, which instantly recoil as if spurned, as rage is replaced in acquiesnce by fear.
"What is it?" Akira whispers gazing at the box.
Irieshu's eyes fall once more upon the box, which has now begun to glow a sinister red.
"This? This is either our saviour or the apocolypse. But, to be more specific, let me put in this way: In about a minute, you won't care one way or the other."
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