From The Ashes - 025

Chapter 025 – Wraith

[2012]

Slowly my consciousness flickered as I woke up from my slumber, exhaustion making my limbs feel as if they had been shackled to a mountain.

Forcing myself to open my eyes and expand my perception, I realized that I was laying on my side with nine inches of water all around me.

The colours of the most beautiful sunset illuminated my surroundings as I pushed myself into a kneeling position with difficulty and looked around.

I wasn't sure where I was but from one moment to another, I froze as I looked ahead, staring fixedly at the figure that had just appeared in front of me without causing any ripples in my Observation Haki.

I didn't feel any kind of living presence around me and I knew that she had long since died but when I saw her gentle smile I couldn't help but push those thoughts aside, hope and longing reigniting in my chest.

I wanted to call out to her, to ask her to stay with me, to tell her how much I missed her, but I found myself unable to, a storm of emotions making my throat close up.

She seemed to understand my intentions though as she stepped closer before kneeling in front of me, a loving light shining in her eyes as she pressed her forehead against mine while her small hands grabbed my own.

“I love you, Tiger.”, she whispered, her little nose playfully brushing against mine as she smiled caringly before leaving a light kiss on my lips that caused me to close my eyes for just a moment, “But it's time to move on, there are others that need you now.”

Jolting awake from my slight daze, I opened my eyes again as I wanted to hold on to her, to ask her how I could ever move on. But it was too late already as she was gone the moment that I opened my eyes again.

Feeling as if someone had torn open my chest and ripped out my heart for a second time, I found it hard to breathe as I realized that I was alone again.

My attention though was suddenly drawn to my left hand as I felt a rough and small object appear in it. Looking down, I saw a glowing orange ingot lying peacefully in the palm of my hand.

I was shocked even though a part of me had already faintly guessed where I was at this moment, memories of movie scenes overlapping with my current situation. For a moment, I almost forgot the pain in my chest as I gazed at the most mysterious and dangerous of the Infinity Stones.

I didn't even hesitate as I clenched my fist and used my spiritual energy to connect with the cosmic object to try and bring her back.

I knew that I wasn't in my original world and that she technically didn't exist in this Universe but how could I not try?

She was just one person, a mortal without any supernatural abilities.

The stones were supposed to carry infinite power, so it seemed reasonable for them to be able to fulfill this wish of mine. This hope though turned to ashes in the next moment as some kind of foreign knowledge bloomed in my mind, the source of it being the Soul Stone.

I had been given the opportunity to wield the orange-glowing cosmic ingot exactly because she could not be revived by any means, her existence only living on as a memory in my mind.

I had been chosen by the Soul Stone because I understood what it meant to lose everything.

My right hand grabbing my left wrist, I wanted to cast aside the Infinity Stone and never return here, anger and hate brewing in my mind for the illusion that I had been shown.

How could I feel anything but disgust for the fact that her loss 'rewarded' me with the Soul Stone's ownership?

My chest heaving as I breathed heavily, pain and a deep sense of sorrow making me feel empty and broken, I stared at the glowing cosmic object and ultimately didn't cast it aside.

Even if unwilling, I understood that the Soul Stone wasn't deliberately cruel or malicious. This was its unchanging nature, its innate power. It couldn't be changed or subverted. This stone, which had the power over life and death, wasn't a living entity that enjoyed bringing people suffering.

Even if it had a trace of sentience, some kind of ethereal will, it could only ever follow its nature regardless of who faced it. Saints or tyrants, before the Soul Stone, all had to suffer and experience loss.

The Soul Stone didn't cause me pain and anguish, I had been in pain for years already. It had just opened up unhealed wounds to make me understand the price of using its power.

Two bitter tears streaking down my cheeks, I raised my right hand and summoned the Space Stone's power, turning my fingers into the sharpest scalpels as I split open the skin in the middle of my forehead and carved out a groove in my skull.

I gritted my teeth at the incredible pain but not a sound escaped my lips as I suppressed the healing fire of my physique.

Blood running down my face in small rivulets of red, I hardly noticed the space around me stilling and trembling under the weight of my Conqueror's Spirit.

Having finished the gruesome carving process rather quickly, I didn't hesitate and placed the Soul Stone in the open wound, pressing it into the indent as pure cosmic energy rushed into my mind and dispersed any remaining mental exhaustion.

Blue fire erupting from my flesh, the wound closed in an instant while the blood that tainted my face, neck, and clothes was burnt away and the 'sunset domain' around me turned more and more illusionary before vanishing completely.

Rising to my feet, I saw that I stood in a massive crater on a planet that smelled of death and lifelessness, with not a hint of vitality seemingly left on this world.

Tilting my head to the side, I saw a dark specter with a red skull levitate in front of me. Through the newly-gained powers of the Soul Stone, I could see a small almost invisible ethereal thread connecting the specter with the cosmic ingot on my forehead.

This thread though was slowly unfolding itself as if freeing the wraith from its bindings.

“It is not an easy burden to carry this stone even if you have already paid the price.”, the Stonekeeper said instead of a greeting.

…

Looking at the dark-haired man that had just been acknowledged by the Infinity Stone that had imprisoned him on this dead world for decades, traces of black ash still covering his face and neck where his blood had been burned by his blue fire, the Stonekeeper suppressed the shock of what he had just witnessed in his heart.

He had guarded the Soul Stone for nearly seventy years, his own existence was even bound to it closely, which made him understand exactly what kind of cosmic force dwelled in the small ingot.

To think that the Infinity Stone that he had coveted but had never been able to possess would offer itself to someone without any sacrifice.

Not to mention the incredible ruthlessness with which the stranger had carved an indentation in his own skull where he placed the Infinity Stone into.

Still, through the connection that he had with the stone, a connection that was rapidly withering, the Stonekeeper could somehow feel the void in the heart of the man in front of him, an overwhelming sense of anguish and sorrow emanating from this void.

There was only one thing in the world that could leave behind such an emotional scar in the heart of a person, which was the death of a loved one.

Seemingly understanding something, the Stonekeeper voiced out a reminder to the new wielder of the Soul Stone: “It is not an easy burden to carry this stone even if you have already paid the price.”

"I know.", the man replied quietly, a hollow rasp to his voice, his matte grey eyes carrying a serene charm as if he was the eye of a storm. Though the underlying sense of power emanating from the man made it clear that he was a walking disaster, his anger being something to avoid at all costs.

“Are you willing to follow me now that you are freed from this curse?”, the man asked calmly and unhurriedly, seemingly just mentioning this in passing.

Hesitating for a moment, the Stonekeeper didn't answer as he felt the familiar fluctuations of the Tesseract pulsing like a heart in the right side of the man's chest through his own increasingly faint connection with the Soul Stone.

Truthfully, the Stonekeeper had almost given up on any hope for freedom after spending decades as a specter, his only company a cosmic object of immeasurable might that refused to let him die or live.

He still remembered his ambitions as a mortal human though, even if they seemed to be from a long-forgotten past. But his time as a Stonekeeper had changed him irrevocably, as the Soul Stone had shown things that would have destroyed lesser minds.

At this point in time, the Stonekeeper wasn't even sure who he was anymore or if he could ever return to life as a normal mortal. He wasn't yearning for power anymore either, what he yearned for was freedom.

Still, he had seen glimpses of the Soul Stone wielder's incredible strength, so he asked: "What use would someone like you, a wielder of two Infinity Stones, have for a wraith like me? What is it that you are after?"

“I am not sure.”, the man replied lightly, a strangely lost yet carefree spirit accompanying his words.

Though as he continued, the look in his eyes suddenly changed as a dark spark of defiance appeared in his eyes, his whole form emitting a soul-stirring pressure while the space around him trembled and creaked in agony.

"But wherever I go, I won't bow down to fate. I will be free.", he ended quietly with an unshakable conviction.

Shock and surprise surging in his heart, the tough red skin that stretched over his skull was unable to hide his expression as gazed deeply at the man in front of him, the man's raging will seemingly igniting the same sense of defiance in his own soul.

Levitating closer to the ground, the Stonekeeper didn't hesitate as he bowed and swore solemnly: “Then let me accompany you on this journey, Lord.”

“You can call me Noah.”, the man offered, the pressure around him vanishing while his eyes reverted back into two orbs of unpolished granite, the spark of defiance hiding in their depths as his gaze seemingly peered through space.