Do not mind how much Kouga thought about: there was no point. Why, how might it be, that an entiere lineage of Makai Knights was obligated to cross the line against which all they were warned so seriously? He even remembered what priest Amon said once some years ago, when he spent a couple of months with him to get some theoretical instruction:
“You need some great skills of observation and wits to finish your opponent before your armor run out of time” he said. “I assume you know about that danger: deformation at every level of yourself. And, believe me, not being handsome anymore is the most harmless. Want d’you know the worst?”
Kouga wanted to say no, he was not in the mood, and had no intention to become an evil one, but Amon did not mind his facial look.
“Ethical perversion. Any moral value that could be precious to you ceases to be important. How can it be? You’ll feel such power excess, beyond the human scale, that you won’t have any resources to handle it. Worse: you won’t feel the need to control it and, if someone told you, you’ll think that’s a nonsense. Add an unbearable pain that your altered armor will impose on your body. You'll become insane. When the pain will start to diminish, you’ll fell you have no limit, there is nothing you can’t do. You'll like it. This is the non-return point”.
Amon’s nailing look made him very uncomfortable. As the priest thought he was an easy victim of the dark side, younger Kouga felt insulted. He was about to face and ask him, without any honorable intention, why he could learn all that... unless he had such an experience.
With the information provided by Jabi, he could understand that perhaps it was the experience of someone else: his father, as both men were friends. The old Amon, in his own way, announced him what he could expect.
But he needed to clarify the absurdity of...
“Kouga?”
He almost spilled the cup of tea he had in his hand. He had forgotten he was sitting at the table in the garden, with Kaoru and Jabi. For the first time the priestess had allowed him to leave his bed. Kaoru looked at him.
“You’re okay?”
He simply nodded and took a sip of tea. His beloved one do not feel bad anymore about his mental absences and, plus, because of her he had learned to open up a bit. But a single glance at Jabi was enough to guess that she knew exactly what had kept him lost in thoughts.
“I leave to class” Kaoru said. “A power struggle with the quarrelsome of the school is waiting for me, and I’ve to show them who is in command”.
He took up her hand and spoke directly to her heart, as he did almost always.
“Show them who’s stronger. I know this evening, when you return, they’ll be at your feet”.
Kaoru smiled gratefully. She knew from experience that Kouga’s touch transferred his own strength to her.
“She does not know about, right?” The priestess said when Kaoru was gone. He took out his eyes, so she commented: “ Curious, you refuse to tell her what is, indeed, the greatest test of love”.
Suddenly Kouga focuses his sight on her again, alarm written on his face.
“Don’t need to be a soothsayer” she explained “to know that only your underdeveloped emotional side was weak enough to be the target of such a disaster”.
“I’m not proud of it”. He took another sip. A very long one.
“You’d be: you risked your soul, your whole self, for her. And you won”.
Resigned to Jabi would not change the subject, he left his cup on the table.
“Just because someone else helped me”.
“As your predecessors did: someone or something, either concrete or abstract, got them back on time. Also Garo’s destiny. So few use would be to give up Garo to the dark, right?” She leant forward to he to listen her well. “Because they return, because they get that power and reject it, Garos are superiors”.
“So, why the same fate did not help Barago?”
“Barago didn’t have the patience to complete his training, so he didn’t consecrate himself to Garo. He only sought power. And he got power!”
Why, Kouga wondered, Taiga did not see that the ethical training which a Makai Knight was subjected had not worked to Barago? Soon, he himself found the answer: his father had faith in Barago. Kouga knew that he might have committed this same error, too.
“Given that the individual fate is bound to Garo’s, there should be some alterations: how many Garos have been lost because of it?”
“I don’t know. But” Jabi pointed “they couldn’t be many ones, it’d be useless”.
The girl sat closer, on the chair occupied previously by Kaoru.
“Still you don’t see the benefits that made you to gain”.
Her tone and her voice went down, and the delicious warmth of her glance encircled Kouga in an envelope of privacity that should have surpeised him. Even to Kaoru he had to take the decision to let her into his soul, but his heart was opened to Jabi without him having the purpose, and he did not know why it happened. At that time, the memories of his young times rushed into his mind. Some few facts, but many senses: feeling comfortable with her, unable to imagine life without her over there, anger and affection mixed. It was hard when their respective destinations got them apart. But when Kodama, much later, volatilized her, he lost his temper, and this thing had to have its cause.
“I don’t know to see any advantage there” he answered. “But, I’ve notized a ... resistance ... to do the job”.
“Just this ensures you won’t ever again tempted by the dark side. You can enter as much as you need, with almost no risk”.
Kouga denied.
“Some time ago the darkness get me tired”. This was a confession that he had not done to anyone. Jabi could pull out some confidences ... and, surprisingly, he almost wished it. “Sometimes I want to flee away, throw my sword, not to call my armor anymore ...”
Jabi touched his forearm, her look seemed smooth as silk too.
“Don’t you see how this makes your soul invulnerable? Garo’s greatest gift: his wish for the light, generated from that hard experience and a strong ethics training”.
The young man looked directly into her eyes. She did not seem able to understand his agony, but his self was free to express itself. Jabi was who remembered his mission to him and everything the Makai world had of good. But Kaoru, the brilliant Kaoru, whom he gripped in his saturation of darkness. She, the bringer of light, his refuge and his link with his humanity. He needed both of them to preserve himself.
Jabi approached to him until their heads nearly touched. She kissed him on the lips. She straightend back to her chair and fixed her eyes on her hands folded on her lap.
“Now, I’d be the one to slap you”, Kouga said with a bit of irony.
She giggled. Long ago, before their own traingings got them apart, one Kouga drived by a tender moment, and especially by his hormonal turmoil, kissed her. The girl in her early teens slapped him so hard that almost threw him to the ground, and left laughing, leaving behind her a very confused boy.
But there was not confusion anymore. Now it was he the one becoming closer and touching her lips briefly, bringing his whole capacity of affection, without to pretend anything else, and knowing that it was an unique and unrepeatable time. So, they sealed a lasting friendship and help commitement. They parted..
“But hunger for light isn’t the only gift” Jabi went on, deliberately breaking the spell. “I got only moderately surprised when you’d such an extraordinary transformation as we’re saving the White Night. We’ll never know enough how far Garo’s potential can go. Zaruba” she focused her attention on the madou ring, which was approached by its owner “have you have noticed if Kouga senses better not only horrors, but the presence of the dark thoughts of humans too?”
“Certainly” the tiny metal-head answered. “And now that you say it, I noticed more changes, but they may derive from his recent adherence to the light”.
“Sure” she says, “this has some multidimensional ramifications”.
“There are some more things: before, chocolate and wine were indifferent to him, but now he likes them” Zaruba went on. “And, he insists that Gonza to put more spices into the meals”.
“Chocolate and wine fill the lack of something within himself, he can’t abuse. Scold him if he goes too far. As the species, they’re highly concentrated substances: perhaps his body is doing some readaptations in several levels. If, after spending more or less a year, he remains abusing them, call me, because it means that his imbalance is getting permanent”.
“He begins to like it what humans call good life the talking ring continued”. I suspect this one depends more of Kaoru’s influence”.
“How do you know” she argued “that Kaoru is not a part of this special plan?”
“I don’t know, Jabi. Neither I, myself, knew anything about you've explained”.
The young woman leaned on the back of her chair.
“According to my teacher, there are only two depositories of Garo’s secret: the real Garo and a Makai priest, which extends to their successors”.
“And the madou jewels involved” Zaruba added.
“You don’t utter” Jabi pinted. “Your knowledge is that of your ower, and isn’t made to use it regardless, if it isn’t in his benefit”.
Kouga wondered if this chatty pair had forgotten he was there.
“You need some great skills of observation and wits to finish your opponent before your armor run out of time” he said. “I assume you know about that danger: deformation at every level of yourself. And, believe me, not being handsome anymore is the most harmless. Want d’you know the worst?”
Kouga wanted to say no, he was not in the mood, and had no intention to become an evil one, but Amon did not mind his facial look.
“Ethical perversion. Any moral value that could be precious to you ceases to be important. How can it be? You’ll feel such power excess, beyond the human scale, that you won’t have any resources to handle it. Worse: you won’t feel the need to control it and, if someone told you, you’ll think that’s a nonsense. Add an unbearable pain that your altered armor will impose on your body. You'll become insane. When the pain will start to diminish, you’ll fell you have no limit, there is nothing you can’t do. You'll like it. This is the non-return point”.
Amon’s nailing look made him very uncomfortable. As the priest thought he was an easy victim of the dark side, younger Kouga felt insulted. He was about to face and ask him, without any honorable intention, why he could learn all that... unless he had such an experience.
With the information provided by Jabi, he could understand that perhaps it was the experience of someone else: his father, as both men were friends. The old Amon, in his own way, announced him what he could expect.
But he needed to clarify the absurdity of...
“Kouga?”
He almost spilled the cup of tea he had in his hand. He had forgotten he was sitting at the table in the garden, with Kaoru and Jabi. For the first time the priestess had allowed him to leave his bed. Kaoru looked at him.
“You’re okay?”
He simply nodded and took a sip of tea. His beloved one do not feel bad anymore about his mental absences and, plus, because of her he had learned to open up a bit. But a single glance at Jabi was enough to guess that she knew exactly what had kept him lost in thoughts.
“I leave to class” Kaoru said. “A power struggle with the quarrelsome of the school is waiting for me, and I’ve to show them who is in command”.
He took up her hand and spoke directly to her heart, as he did almost always.
“Show them who’s stronger. I know this evening, when you return, they’ll be at your feet”.
Kaoru smiled gratefully. She knew from experience that Kouga’s touch transferred his own strength to her.
“She does not know about, right?” The priestess said when Kaoru was gone. He took out his eyes, so she commented: “ Curious, you refuse to tell her what is, indeed, the greatest test of love”.
Suddenly Kouga focuses his sight on her again, alarm written on his face.
“Don’t need to be a soothsayer” she explained “to know that only your underdeveloped emotional side was weak enough to be the target of such a disaster”.
“I’m not proud of it”. He took another sip. A very long one.
“You’d be: you risked your soul, your whole self, for her. And you won”.
Resigned to Jabi would not change the subject, he left his cup on the table.
“Just because someone else helped me”.
“As your predecessors did: someone or something, either concrete or abstract, got them back on time. Also Garo’s destiny. So few use would be to give up Garo to the dark, right?” She leant forward to he to listen her well. “Because they return, because they get that power and reject it, Garos are superiors”.
“So, why the same fate did not help Barago?”
“Barago didn’t have the patience to complete his training, so he didn’t consecrate himself to Garo. He only sought power. And he got power!”
Why, Kouga wondered, Taiga did not see that the ethical training which a Makai Knight was subjected had not worked to Barago? Soon, he himself found the answer: his father had faith in Barago. Kouga knew that he might have committed this same error, too.
“Given that the individual fate is bound to Garo’s, there should be some alterations: how many Garos have been lost because of it?”
“I don’t know. But” Jabi pointed “they couldn’t be many ones, it’d be useless”.
The girl sat closer, on the chair occupied previously by Kaoru.
“Still you don’t see the benefits that made you to gain”.
Her tone and her voice went down, and the delicious warmth of her glance encircled Kouga in an envelope of privacity that should have surpeised him. Even to Kaoru he had to take the decision to let her into his soul, but his heart was opened to Jabi without him having the purpose, and he did not know why it happened. At that time, the memories of his young times rushed into his mind. Some few facts, but many senses: feeling comfortable with her, unable to imagine life without her over there, anger and affection mixed. It was hard when their respective destinations got them apart. But when Kodama, much later, volatilized her, he lost his temper, and this thing had to have its cause.
“I don’t know to see any advantage there” he answered. “But, I’ve notized a ... resistance ... to do the job”.
“Just this ensures you won’t ever again tempted by the dark side. You can enter as much as you need, with almost no risk”.
Kouga denied.
“Some time ago the darkness get me tired”. This was a confession that he had not done to anyone. Jabi could pull out some confidences ... and, surprisingly, he almost wished it. “Sometimes I want to flee away, throw my sword, not to call my armor anymore ...”
Jabi touched his forearm, her look seemed smooth as silk too.
“Don’t you see how this makes your soul invulnerable? Garo’s greatest gift: his wish for the light, generated from that hard experience and a strong ethics training”.
The young man looked directly into her eyes. She did not seem able to understand his agony, but his self was free to express itself. Jabi was who remembered his mission to him and everything the Makai world had of good. But Kaoru, the brilliant Kaoru, whom he gripped in his saturation of darkness. She, the bringer of light, his refuge and his link with his humanity. He needed both of them to preserve himself.
Jabi approached to him until their heads nearly touched. She kissed him on the lips. She straightend back to her chair and fixed her eyes on her hands folded on her lap.
“Now, I’d be the one to slap you”, Kouga said with a bit of irony.
She giggled. Long ago, before their own traingings got them apart, one Kouga drived by a tender moment, and especially by his hormonal turmoil, kissed her. The girl in her early teens slapped him so hard that almost threw him to the ground, and left laughing, leaving behind her a very confused boy.
But there was not confusion anymore. Now it was he the one becoming closer and touching her lips briefly, bringing his whole capacity of affection, without to pretend anything else, and knowing that it was an unique and unrepeatable time. So, they sealed a lasting friendship and help commitement. They parted..
“But hunger for light isn’t the only gift” Jabi went on, deliberately breaking the spell. “I got only moderately surprised when you’d such an extraordinary transformation as we’re saving the White Night. We’ll never know enough how far Garo’s potential can go. Zaruba” she focused her attention on the madou ring, which was approached by its owner “have you have noticed if Kouga senses better not only horrors, but the presence of the dark thoughts of humans too?”
“Certainly” the tiny metal-head answered. “And now that you say it, I noticed more changes, but they may derive from his recent adherence to the light”.
“Sure” she says, “this has some multidimensional ramifications”.
“There are some more things: before, chocolate and wine were indifferent to him, but now he likes them” Zaruba went on. “And, he insists that Gonza to put more spices into the meals”.
“Chocolate and wine fill the lack of something within himself, he can’t abuse. Scold him if he goes too far. As the species, they’re highly concentrated substances: perhaps his body is doing some readaptations in several levels. If, after spending more or less a year, he remains abusing them, call me, because it means that his imbalance is getting permanent”.
“He begins to like it what humans call good life the talking ring continued”. I suspect this one depends more of Kaoru’s influence”.
“How do you know” she argued “that Kaoru is not a part of this special plan?”
“I don’t know, Jabi. Neither I, myself, knew anything about you've explained”.
The young woman leaned on the back of her chair.
“According to my teacher, there are only two depositories of Garo’s secret: the real Garo and a Makai priest, which extends to their successors”.
“And the madou jewels involved” Zaruba added.
“You don’t utter” Jabi pinted. “Your knowledge is that of your ower, and isn’t made to use it regardless, if it isn’t in his benefit”.
Kouga wondered if this chatty pair had forgotten he was there.
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