"...Cancer?"
Dinah wanted to know more about Claudia's state at the time. Wilhelm, still seated across from her, nodded with a wry smile on his face.
"Yeah. And when you think about it, I should've known. Sunlight was like fucking poison for her, yet she'd walked around outside every day since she was a brat. Can't say I know much about medical stuff, but it was pretty damn weird that she was even alive, really. 'Metastasis' is the word for it, right? It started with the skin, but then it passed into her muscles, bones, organs... It spread so much that no one could do shit to save her. Her fate was basically sealed. It was a fucking miracle that she was even able to walk, talk, and eat."
"Weren't there any visual cues that tipped you off?"
"None. Sure, it would've been easy to tell if her nose had fallen off or some shit, but there was nothing that obvious. Though, for all I know, she might've been hiding it. She never wore clothes that showed much skin, and most of her body was covered in bandages. I did help her change them every now and then, but she probably tried to hide the worse off parts from my eyes. She was a woman. And a nun to boot. Wasn't strange for her to act bashful, so I didn't think much of it. Well, not like I can deny that I was dense."
Spread out on the sofa, he laughed at his past self. But even if he'd been more perceptive back then and noticed it earlier, not much would have changed. After all, Wilhelm didn't care if there was something he could do to help her — he wouldn't have done it regardless.
Dinah already knew her well enough to understand that. With that in mind, she continued the interview.
"Cancer, huh? Didn't you people have any sort of secret art that could've helped her? Isn't magic capable of dealing with incurable diseases?"
"It is. But look at it this way... Consider your recorder. Can you build it from scratch? All on your own, I mean. Using any sort of technology and granting it are completely different things. The only member of the Longinus Dreizehn Orden who actually had power was Mercurius. Without him, we wouldn't have the slightest bit of magic. And there's the fact we didn't have a single member that could heal others. Soothing pain and all that shit was just impossible for us."
"Because you didn't have such a craving?"
"Yeah. None of us were right for the job."
The Longinus Dreizehn Orden's Obsidian Round Table was a group of wartime soldiers and madmen who sought power. It was only natural for their souls to lean strongly toward destruction.
"But didn't Rusalka Anna Schwägelin learn magic on her own? Wasn't she capable of saving Claudia? Or did the witch not possess anything capable of subduing terminal cancer?"
"Hah. Try asking that to her face. I'd love to see her screech about it. See, she can be a seriously low caliber person sometimes. Even if she agreed to do it, it sure as shit wouldn't have been free."
"I assume she would have demanded the rights to Claudia?"
"Yeah. And then she'd have been her new toy."
"So you didn't want to rely on her, nor bow before Mercurius..."
"And I just didn't give a shit about saving her, really."
That was the jist of it. The vampire wanted to make her crave life and kill her the moment she screamed she didn't want to die.
"The time limit was a double-edged blade for you, then. It had a powerful effect on Claudia, but also limited your chances and left you with no room to make mistakes. Calling it a 'gamble' might be a bit much, but assuming we did... Did you believe you had a chance?"
"A chance? Heh, well now..."
"I can already tell you aren't the type to think things through, but still..."
From what he'd told her, Dinah assumed that bringing Claudia to fights and exposing her to violence wasn't nearly enough to instill a fear of death in her, and so she figured Wilhelm had reconsidered his course of action. Claudia had been dancing with death since the earliest of her days. As such, no normal means had a chance of fazing her.
"Allow me to analyze her. Claudia was very free-spirited and a glutton for happiness. Despite being born an albino, she wasn't satisfied with just the moonlight. She saw warmth, brightness, and fun in life under the sun, so she reached out for it. She sought a sanctuary in the light. The sun burned, hurt, and scared her, but the joy she experienced was far greater, so she didn't mind at all. Claudia most likely called herself a 'half a person' because of that."
"Yeah, you're probably right. Though it hit me a while after the fact, that's more or less what I thought."
She'd subdued her pain with pleasure and numbed her fear with joy. There were differences in extent and situation, but that mentality wasn't all that unusual. However, Claudia had taken it to the absolute extreme. She was such a glutton for happiness that her bliss outweighed the excruciating pain and fear of death.
"Despite that, she was no idiot, nor was she insane. She knew exactly what she was doing. That was probably why she considered herself strange. After all, who in their right mind would do something so dangerous, yet not feel at all afraid? And so, she concluded that being a child of Noah meant she was half a person — someone who lacked much. Claudia definitely wasn't normal, but in her case, it wasn't a lack, but an excess. She had badly misjudged her situation."
That was exactly why Wilhelm had realized that Claudia's soul had a powerful shine to it. It was mostly his intuition at the time, but he didn't miss the mark. She'd had an excessive craving for the light, but assumed that she wasn't a full person. Thus, if the conditions were right, she could ascend even higher.
"Intriguing. I would have loved to meet her. My analysis isn't over yet. May I?"
Wilhelm shrugged and signaled for her to continue. Dinah thanked him and downed the last of her Kiss in the Dark. Her parched throat now quenched, she continued.
"I believe that, before you met Claudia and for a while after that, she was in a relatively negative state of mind. She probably involved herself with the war and — if you don't mind me saying this — people like you because she wanted to experience an 'average' level of fear. She panicked because she realized her life was fading. Her time was short, so she wanted something 'full,' rather than 'half,' even if it was despair. 'if I can get something ordinary from this life, then I don't mind even if it comes at my final moment,' was it? The way she was at this time was very convenient for you. However, that wasn't what she really was. The girl known as Claudia Jerusalem was a seeker of life, after all."
She wanted to give, rather than take. Rise, rather than fall... And laugh, rather than cry.
"And that was why she decided to teach you, a fellow 'half a person' and child of Noah, love. It's a lovely decision, and I felt it suited her far better. You are strong, intense, and dreadful, so she might've seen you as an ideal, of sorts. You had what she thought she didn't, and that probably led her to believe that she could find what she sought if she became yours. But she wondered if that would really be enough — if there was anything she could for you with her meager power. She doubted she could go to her 'sanctuary' if she just took and didn't give anything in return. Then came the revelation."
She found her light when Wilhelm revealed that he, too, was 'half a person.' Dinah formed a smile.
"Do you regret saying that?"
"Not one bit. Sure, it just slipped out, but I wasn't lying or anything. Things played out like they were supposed to, if you asked me."
Claudia would become Wilhelm's first love, and by making up for what he lacked, she, too, would be fulfilled. The satisfaction would make the child of Noah ascend and allow her to enter her final rest peacefully.
"Though it kinda pisses me off, her plan was actually good. It wasn't something I could just work around, and hell, I can't say I actually felt like trying. As one of Lord Heydrich's Claws and Fangs, I wanted to embody the love of destruction. I knew that I needed it, but it was just too... Raw and base."
"Love isn't something you put effort into, after all."
"Exactly. Whatever the case, I had to arrange and interpret it in my own way. And like I said, it really pissed me off. I'm just not enough of a philosopher to accept that everyone had their own unique take on joy. Take Machina, for example. The man seeks death itself, so you won't see me telling him off. Sure, I see him as an idiot, but it's just a matter of a difference in direction. I don't even mind hoping that he gets what he wants. Now, Claudia... She didn't actually want to die. Sure, her attention was focused on other things, so survival wasn't that high on her list, but if it was possible, she'd have liked to keep on living."
Exactly, if it was possible. Wilhelm just couldn't tolerate that lack of commitment.
"There's a clear order of precedence set up. You're barely an actual animal if you don't put your survival above all. Yeah, you have tons of idiots who say they wouldn't mind dying if their dreams came true, but those who could actually do that just don't exist. And they shouldn't. That's what I think, anyway. And it's why I swore to not let Claudia die when she got all fat and happy."
He'd intended to kill her after making her beg and cry for life.
"I figured that if she were to bloom like that, I could actually come to love her. Now, back to my chances... I knew the odds were against me, but I was sure I could do it."
"How?"
Wilhelm cracked a self-degrading grin.
"Like I said, don't rush me. I'm only now getting to the meat of the story. After the thing at Katyn, our relationship started to change. That came with a bunch of shit that just didn't make sense, like the dream."
"Dreams? What do you mean...?"
"Look, let me just keep talking. Before that, though... Sure you don't want some more to drink?"
"Now that you mention it, I'm up for one more, thank you... Actually, let me make it this time."
"Oh? Well that's nice. Sure, go ahead."
As Dinah stood up and headed for the counter, Wilhelm whistled a cheery tune.
________________________________________________________
[Angel in the Rosenkrantz]
In a moment shorter than the blink of an eye, in a slumber deeper than the oceans, I saw a dream.
There was neither peace or bliss. Even the feeling of discomfort it could potentially have given me had died and decayed aeons ago.
After all — I already knew everything.
I had repeated this moment for what might have been an eternity, and I knew it would continue forevermore. I was already tired of it, and the present moment devoid of anything flesh, tired me even further.
To me, all of Creation was akin to the flow of mercury.
It recurred in a single place, bearing the same form, without an end or a purpose in sight. Hoping to find a shift in focus, I had attempted all that could come to mind, yet I never managed to change anything. Ever-changing and ever-present, the foreknowledge continue to ridicule my struggle.
An unknown phenomenon, a new development... All of Existence seemed to be devoid of anything I had yet experience.
Ravaged by a profound sense of resignation, despair, and madness, my ever-repeating, coagulated universe was closed away from all else. I yearned for someone to destroy it, but no one below me was capable of stopping the emanation of the foreknowledge.
This law, weaved from mercury, was viper-like and undying. Throned in all the vertices, it was utterly unmatched, leaving it without an enemy to name. Thus, I wish to discover a match for myself — an equal worthy of lording over Creation as I did.
I wanted them to end me — to bring me salvation in the form of the unknown.
Earnest and eager, I madly hoped someone like that to step forward.
I could not let myself die until that wish of mine became reality.
Passing cycle after cycle, I wandered my world while dreaming of my desired conclusion.
That was my lowly day-to-day life.
I had yet to find a single sign of salvation, I continue accumulating nothing but foreknowledge.
One day, I was visited by a guest. He arrived like a shade and presented me with a question.
"Ah, so that is your business with me. You seek an answer."
"Indeed. However, I'm not expecting much of anything. That isn't something you can give me. This is merely my day-to-day life, magician. A phenomenon as natural as waking, eating, excreting, sleeping and repeating it all again."
"Oh? 'Natural,' you say? Not psychological?"
"Yes, 'natural.' That comparison is merely idiomatic. I actually have no need to eat, excrete, or sleep."
"There were times when I tried to understand and mimic concepts I felt were close to me. For example, the blood sucking, lowly creature-spewing, ground-dwelling nachzehrer. Those who were buried too early... Moving cadavers and the like. I'm capable of behaving like them, but it was a hollow experience when I tried. It's not a mask or skin I wish to don, and that is why I don't."
"And that is why you seek an answer. I share your sentiment. Deeply so. It must have been excruciating. You claim you expect nothing, but that is outright false. You strongly desire to know. The world has many philosophers, sages, master artists, military genius, and even saints. Among them, you can also find questionable sorts claiming to be magicians. Many of them speak of themselves as — or are told to be — paragons of wisdom, and you present this question to all of those you meet. If that is not a pilgrimage for salvation, nothing is. Oh, indeed, I know of your travels. Your records date back to at least a whole millennium. You are the eternal vagrant who pays visit to all the wisest of their generation, present them your question, grants death to all those unable to answer and then resumes his journey. And now, you have arrived before me. Such a coincidence. I happen to be quite an Ahasver-like wanderer myself, after all. It is uncertain which one of us is the basis of the legend. I might have been applied to your myth, or it might be vice-versa. Regardless, it is more than certain they have mixed."
"And? What of it? Even if your words are the truth, the situation remains the same, and my nature unshaken. You will be unable to answer, I will grant you death, and I shall continue wandering again. I'll keep presenting my question, never getting an answer, and killing time and time again. I think nothing of it at this point. I feel it's akin to a habit, almost. I define myself as that kind of phenomenon."
"And yet you are unaware what to call yourself? Then let me ask you a question. Why do you grant death? To ask and to cause death — I fail to see the reason to link those concepts. Is your first memory that of disappointment? Do you envy those who possess death because you do not?"
"No. I have no such sentiments. I merely felt I had to. I became certain that I was before a phenomenon that had to die. Thus, I am no exception. You appraised me as an immortal, but that is off the mark. If I were to trace the same steps as them, I, too, would perish. Now, magician. Bearer of Wisdom. You said that all of Creation is nothing but a flow of mercury and claimed that all of it is foreknowledge to you. If that is truly so, then do show that your travels have provided the answer I seek. Prove to me that you already know it. Answer me this. What in the world am I?"
"That could not be more simple."
We were alike, so I understood him. This entity and I were very close in nature.
I finally recalled that beings like him used to exist at some point, and supposed that this was my responsibility to be take.
"You mentioned nature and what is natural, did you not? You came to know things you felt were close to you, mimicked them, yet found it hollow. That is where the answer lies, and I must say, there is nothing complicated about it. A parent cannot wear the clothes of his child, after all. Be more self-aware. You have the order in reverse."
My answer would also be a test to this child of mine.
I would see if the truth I presented him would make him paint an unknown that could be my salvation.
I would test his caliber and see if he was worthy of becoming a performer on my stage.
After all, it was still rather barren, devoid of actors, and I wished to see if he was worthy of standing on it.
Earnest and eager, I madly yearned for and plead for him to be my savior.
"You are the God of Darkness. Methuselah, you are the father of darkness and all the children of the night."
Oh, what a laughable, pitiful entity I was.
His expression, stiff with shock, was one that I already knew.
How trifling. How dull. My universe was still an ever- recurring flow of mercury.
Please, someone... Anyone, annihilate this foreknowledge.
Where are you, O actor of miracle...? I beg of you, come and close the curtains on my journey.