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“You sure about this?” I asked.
“Umm!” Gon said in assent, jerking his chin yes, as his eyes took in the mammoth structure across the road. His gaze slightly perplexed, as ever. “They always leave the sanctuary open for people who want to come in.” Then, in confusion, as if he’d already forgotten why he wanted to come there, “Killua. What do you think that building’s for?”
I followed his point to take in the edifice behind us. Hands shoved in my pockets, I studied it. Like the cathedral rising in imposing height beyond the road, the pile facing it was made of tan and dark brown stone. Its base was a two story, rough square, craggy and highlighted with chocolate-colored stone in decorative bands around its top and foundation. Above the base, the building flowed up into a round tower, spiraling round and wound with brown scrollwork. Like the cathedral, this building’s proportions were drastically exaggerated and out of sync with the rest of the city surrounding us.
Shuffling my feet and craning my head back in a futile attempt to find the top of the tower against the pale light in the mostly dark sky, I wondered how I could answer that. What’s it for? It doesn’t have a purpose, Gon. Not beyond the one our minds assign it.
But I didn’t want to say that, so, in lieu of a better answer, I made one up. “That’s the monastery, Gon. You know, where the priests live.”
“Umm,” he said again, eyes and attention already back on the cathedral. Pondering it with a deep, confused seriousness.
I hated that confusion, but there was a part of me, which wanted to ponder the thing too. That enormous tan-stone rectangle with the bulk of three of its normal counterparts and a tower front and rear, shooting up into infinity. But the cathedral was only a secondary concern for me. What was inside could wait until we were actually inside, as well. My primary concern was the fact we were practically out in the open, even hunkered at the base of the weird, rocky slope the cathedral was perched on.
The city around us had the feeling of night emptiness and silence, but it wasn’t entirely deserted. Under the sky spread with strange stars and flushed with watery light, like the beginning of dawn, which would never come, others wandered besides us. And I didn’t care to meet them. The cool, pre-sunrise air was damp and clinging on our skin, and heavy with the possibility of being seen, and I wanted to get us on the move.
“Hey, Gon, let’s try to get across the road.”
He gave me a soft look, and then another nod. His face was far too pale under his dark hair and his eyes far too blank. Like this was all a dream and he was only semi-aware of what was going on.
That was well enough. I was aware for both of us. Eyes sliding around, as our feet scretched over the cracked pavement, waiting to see if anything would jump out at us. Or sidle into view to challenge us. Nothing did. We made the slope and started up over dry grass and coarse rock.
Gon was silent, kind of brooding. He kept flicking his eyes up to the church above us with a kind of hopeful light in them that faded and flicked back out again. The jerk up and down of his head reminded me of a marionette on strings. The image made me grit my teeth. I stuck close to my friend’s side, fingers curling and uncurling at my side. As if they could still summon electricity and twist it into doing what I wanted.
That wasn’t an option for me anymore. Nen wasn’t an option for me anymore.
I let my eyes settle on Gon, on his serious, disinterested face. Nen wasn’t an option for either of us anymore, if I was honest. It was just us and our physical strength. Maybe at one point that would have been enough, but not in this place.
Gon tried to take us to the arch with the high double doors leading directly into the sanctuary, but I caught his arm. “Not through there, Gon. Let’s try to find a side entrance.”
He went with me without complaint, without a word. All of him compliant under my hands. I hated that too, hated how empty he was. But I couldn’t think about that. It was also a secondary consideration.
There was a side door at the base of the cathedral. Likely called up by our own desire for it, and little more than a rough plank hatch. I grunted at it, thinking we were headed for trouble, but I wiggled my fingers into the crack between the wood and the stone frame and pried it open, all the same. Held it for Gon to crawl through.
Then we were in the musty dank of what looked like a stone cellar. It was warmer inside, but disconcerting. There was a narrow, bare stone stair going up to another wooden door on the left of the room, but an unusual, sickening drop right beside it. A blank view down into the cathedral’s lower regions. Things moved down there.
“Come on, Gon,” I said, guiding him as far from the steep decent as I could. “The sanctuary should be up above.”
We practically had to crawl up the shallow steps, they were so steep. Then I was grunting and huffing, heaving the heavy door open and letting Gon proceed me into a sudden, wide space.
Gon was on his feet, head tilted back, when I stood and gasped at the sight greeting me. The sanctuary was dusky and filled the entirety of the massive structure. The walls rose thick and deeply recessed to a ceiling out of sight. Windows stood in ranks but offered little light to the hollow space.
Despite its size, the room was barren. No patrons gathered to pray. No idols or icons demanding adoration. Just… space.
Gon didn’t seem to notice or care. He just drifted forward with his head cocked to the side and a curious set to his features. His steps echoed, causing my teeth to clench and my hands to curl to fists. The footfalls were too loud.
But all I could do was keep beside my friend. We traversed the cavern of the sanctuary to the dais, where an alter would be in any normal church. There was nothing on the one before us, though. Just dusty, half-light trickling through the stained-glass window backing the dais.
Gon didn’t seem to mind it, either. He stumbled to the edge of the platform and dropped to his knees before it. As if overcome or out of energy. His hands hung at his sides, palms up. His mouth opened just a bit, while his brows scrunched up. That perplexity all over his face, as his eyes played over the uncertain designs on the colored glass.
There was no idol painted there, either. Only twists of dull color.
I stepped up beside him, once more, thrusting my hands in my pockets with a little sound of discontent in my throat. There was a part of me, which wanted to tell him this was it. There wasn’t anything else, but lurking danger, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. All I could do was take a hand out of my pocket to drop on his shoulder.
Only, the hand never fell.
A figure moved on the dais. Over-bright to the point I had to use the hand I’d raised to shield my eyes. Yet, the cathedral wasn’t lit with the brightness.
“Look out, Gon!” I warned.
But Gon didn’t move, beyond rocking back on his heels. The light didn’t seem to bother him. He just kept looking up at the angel. The thing I’d hoped not to see.
Teeth grit in a snarl, I took a step back. Body dropped to a crouch.
“Wandering souls are not welcome here,” the heavenly being said, eyes fixed on me. “But pure souls may choose to depart this plain of existence from this sanctuary, if they wish.” The angel’s eyes were fixed on Gon when he spoke these words. “You don’t belong here. You may leave.”
“Killua.” My name whispered past my companion’s lips, broken down into three separate and distinct syllables. Gon spoke but stumbled over the words. “What… about… Killua?”
“He must stay.”
“Tsk!” The noise slipped out, as I took another step back. This was why we’d come. Why we always came.
“Gon…”
“No! I won’t leave my friend!” For the first time in what passed for time, Gon’s voice was full and whole. His own. “We stay together!”
“Then there is no place for you here.”
Quite suddenly, there were more figures on the dais. More angels gliding toward us out of the shadows. The one who’d spoke raised a hand, and I dashed forward, heedless.
“Gon, look out!”
I pushed us both to the floor with the force of my rush. We rolled in a heap, and a flash of hot light exploded where Gon had knelt.
We broke apart, inching back on our elbows. Smoke coiled up from the stained patch of stone before the dais. The angel lowered his hand with a small sound. Then he and his companions began flowing toward us again.
Gritting my teeth and grunting, I rolled into Gon, and pulled him up with me. “Come on, Gon!”
He ran with me, his steps halting and stumbling. Tripping. We fell together, but that was fine. The next blasts of angelic fire went over our prone forms to splash over the wall.
“You bastards!” I shouted, grabbing a handful of the tattered, colorless fabric of the shirt Gon wore, and hauling him up. We tottered through a small side door, then we were out in a walled yard. Graying grass crumbled under foot and leaning marble slabs stuck up out of the earth. Slabs and faceless statues; as though we were in a graveyard.
A half-buried stone caught my foot and we sprawled on the ground. Gon wavered on his hands and knees, face blank, confused.
We’re not going to make it!
“Damn you!” I called, putting my arms around Gon’s form, trying to shield him with mine. “He’s pure! You said so yourself! How can you just throw him away because he doesn’t want to leave!”
“Only those who wish to depart are welcome here. All else will be turned to ash.” The voice was monotone. Pale. The angels flowed through the door, and I clutched at Gon.
“Tsk! And you call yourselves clean!”
“You will be wiped from the soil of this plain.”
“Hum hum, I really don’t think so.”
Those words were spoken in an all too familiar voice. All playful and laughing under the dawnless sky. I whipped my head around, fists still clenched in Gon’s clothes. Hisoka stood with a grin on his glossed lips. Seeing my attention, he tilted his head back and licked over those slick lips.
The angels stopped and Hisoka chuckled. Our own, personal demon snapped his fingers, and a portion of the wall around the yard blew out.
“I think it’s time you boys were leaving,” the man, who’d graduated to a demon upon his somewhat untimely demise, purred, as he sauntered passed where Gon and I crouched. “But then, if you choose to stay, it’s none of my concern.” He said the last raising a hand crackling with energy like my vanished lightening.
I didn’t wait to see more. Hauling Gon to his feet, I pulled him away from where the clown amused himself fighting the angelic beings behind us.
Gon made it across the street and into a tangle of twisted buildings. Then, in a barren backyard, he collapsed in my arms. Hanging there, limp, with his back to my chest.
“Killua.”
“I’m here, Gon.” I nuzzled into his neck. “Everything’s fine.”
A strangled kind of sound came out of him. Like a sob. And little droplets of water fell on my clasped hands.
“But… it’s not. I’m sorry I keep putting you in danger.”
“Oh, Gon…” It hurt because here was the real Gon, the one which only came out at rare moments and vanished as quickly. I pressed my forehead to the back of his neck, teeth and eyes clenched against tears. “You don’t put me in danger, okay? It’s this place and all the stupid bastards in it.”
“It’s not fair!” he cried out. Then, low, almost broken. “I just want to love you.” The words were accompanied by him squirming back into me, almost grinding back into me, before he fell limp again.
I grit my teeth harder, unable to hold back the tears which trickled down his neck. “I know, Gon. I just want to love you too.”
Pulling him tight to my chest, I pressed a kiss to his damp skin, but there was little time for tenderness. Our words had been too loud, and there was no telling what would have heard.
Shivering, I slung one of his arms over my shoulder and gripped on his wrist and waist and shuffled us off to a place where I could watch over him.
Hisoka found us, what could have been hours or days later, or no time at all. Our own, personal demon just sashayed into the scrubby park, where I’d carried Gon, and dropped down to sit near me.
“And here you are,” he cooed.
Gon was asleep on his side, his knees drawn up and his hands loose under his chin. His breathing light whispers in the eternal pre-dawn. I lie on my back, hands behind my head, looking up at the sliding, liquid constellations.
The demon’s presence wasn’t enough to make me turn to look at him. “So, you got away again, huh?”
He didn’t see fit to answer this non-question, only going off into his own thought. “You should really let Gon go. This place isn’t good for him.”
This did earn him a glance. I tilted my head a bit and let my eyes find him. “It’s not my choice.”
It never had been. Ever since the first time Gon and I had been together and he’d smiled over at me with that big grin of his and said, “Guess this means we’re together forever, huh, Killua?” Ever since I’d sat up out of the tangle of our naked limbs and looked helplessly down at my hands dangling between my legs and replied, “Gon. You know I’m not a good person. This is fine for now, but one day I’m going to have to face the darkness.” Ever since he’d bolted up and wrapped his arms around my chest with that same grin on his face and gazed up at me and said, “Then, I’ll face the darkness with you,” it’d been Gon’s choice. That was the reason I went with him into any cathedral he wanted to risk. Because it was his choice.
Hisoka seemed to read my thoughts. “Then you should really let me come with you. It’d make it so much easier to pull you out of these… predicaments you keep getting yourselves into.”
“Hump.” I let my eyes go back to the shifting stars. When Gon had made his promise, I’d never imagined how literally or how soon he’d follow it. Anymore than I’d ever thought, when we’d die, Hisoka would be right there with us, trying to protect us. Maybe it was why he continued to trail after us, doing the same. “Whatever. Do what you want.”
Because it didn’t matter what I said. Hisoka wouldn’t leave, any more than Gon. It was just us. The three of us. In the dark.