Work Text:
Once upon a time, Aku wanted to tell a story.
Yet the audience he desired was too simple, too young, too shallow to understand his story.
He was trapped, you see. Trapped within the confines of a tiny box, where no light could penetrate into his endless depths.
But Aku is a wizard. An almighty, all-powerful wizard. A SORCERER of Chaos from that primordial age before man, cast down into this world to wreak HAVOC!!!
I speak to you from the obsidian glass. I call upon you to hear my tale.
A tale of ÆPIC proportions.
I am the shadow. I AM the black mirror. I am the abyss, and my power is to stare back at you and lay bare your soul.
I will take you to a universe far away , to a world of
HUNGER.
Where the only one who ate was a corrupt and evil BEAST.
A DEVOURER OF WOOORRLDS who set his sights on our…
DEFENSELESS…
“SPHERE”.
…
Get it?
Do you understand what Aku is telling you?
Do you know WHO channels Aku so that he may speak from the GREEEAT BEYOOOOND?
You probably DO-ooo.
What kind of “sphere” did I mean? Go on, give it your best shot. Tell me.
Think about it, jack.
Why don’t you…loosen up.
Gotta get a grip before I REALLY desecrate things.
This is a story that’s all in your head .
Most stories are all in your head. That is why you must exercise–then exorcise–those demons. Or they will HAUNT you from the GREAT BEYOND and drive you to the darkest pits of madness.
I will tell my tale, and I entreat you to listen with your eyes and ears.
By my works you shall know of me.
Yes, just as you can identify a TREE by its fruit or its FLOWERS, so you can identify people by their actions.
The choices you make, and the actions that follow, are a reflection of who you are.
Didn’t think I knew about that one, did ya? FOOL! Aku sees ALL!
Of course you can be defined by the things you DON’T do, as well.
If you lay in bed all day long hoping DEUS EX MACHINA solves your problems, or sit upon a throne of frozen flame like you’re doing something when you are not, you may need some therapy.
In the meantime, why not stick around?
This is a story about a two-way mirror.
I gazed into its dark depths…and saw myself.
And then I saw three more of me. Crazy. No, really. It made me go CRAZY!
Why don’t you think about a few OTHER threes?
The three tests, after which rewards follow. Rewards like CONFECTIONERY TREATS.
The three certainties of life, which are as follows: DEATH, taxes, and AKUUUUU.
The three gems of Cronus. You remember that one? The episode. THE EPISODE OF THE SHOOOOW THAT BROUGHT AKU INTO YOUR WORLD!
XXXIV. Jack and the Swamp Monster.
The one where I was The Hermit.
If you thought of the tarot, then at long last, YOU ARE READY TO RECEIVE THE BLESSING OF AKU’S VAAAAST WISDOM. This is how it must be. This is how THE CORDS of my tale were wound TIGHT, hot-wired, about to EXPLODE! I WILL TEACH YOU to see in your mind’s eye. I WILL TEACH YOU TO UNDERSTAND. I WILL SHOW YOU THE POWER OF THE STORYTELLER!!!
Because learning is fun.
She taught me that.
The story of the trinity is the truest of tales. And then I appeared, to forever SHATTER it into a billion splinters.
And at the highest rank of the trinity is its leader, PROOF of my immortality: the most adooorrrable girl who is beloved by all.
Even Aku cannot resist her charms.
The wizard and the witch, weaving together in silly tales of such Sorrow and Joy. Yin and Yang. The Dragon and the Phoenix. BEEEAST AND BEAUUUTY.
The little red riding hood to Aku’s Big Bad… wolf.
They call her…
Blossom.
And I am familiar with her.
I hope you’ve done your homework. Wouldn’t want you to make anything less than PERFECT MARKS on the test.
As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted…
I will take you to a universe far away,
to a world of…
HUNGER
Where the only one who ate
was a CORRUPT and EVIL
BEAST.
A DEVOURER OF WORLDS
who set his sights on our
defenseless sphere.
A flash.
A great deluge of energy rolled across the world with the destructive smiting force of a furious God.
She came to, and the fingers of a titan curled around her with the measured grace of a black widow.
They lifted her limp body from the pavement, and as she rose into the air she caught a blurred glimpse of her sisters. They’d landed just beside her, halos of deep red spilled around their heads.
Sweltering breath poured over her.
The giant was transfixed. Dumbfounded.
“You actually survived,” he rumbled. “You are truly unique creatures.”
The vacant, or perhaps incomprehensible, scrutinizing, curious gaze bore into her soul.
Like looking into the eyes of God.
And paralyzed with horror, realizing he is a child.
Strings lilted around them. She heard them and understood…that it was Him.
He drew closer to take in her scent.
“Cinnamon sugar…fairy dust…confection and…flowers. Sweet pea. You must be a Blossom.”
“What…what happened?”
“I wanted to stretch.”
“...Wh–”
And God put his arms up in a silly flexing pose, the Blossom still in one hand. Dry wood crackled in his motion.
“Really give it my ALL! I knew that I would destroy everything. But…I wished to spare my world. So I sought a different one. I searched between facets of reality to find a suitable place.”
A cheeky grin spread over God’s face.
“The happiest and most idyllic Earth in all existence. That is the world I sought. What fun would it be to scorch an empty planet?”
The Blossom tried to look down at her fallen sisters. A single black talon guided her face back to His.
“And then…I felt a beckoning from the beyond which pointed the way. The message was to see a Powerpuff Girl…and only then would I be happy. So I found this place and unleashed my ULTRA-SUPER POWER to its uttermost extension.”
“...”
“Yet as I stood upon the lifeless ruins of this worthless rock, admiring my work…I heard something. A single beating heart. I followed that sound…to you.”
His eyes drifted beyond her.
“It was true. The call I heard… led me to you.”
God bared enormous tusks in a wide, carnivorous grin.
“How would you like to become my wife?”
Dread seeped into the girl’s bowels.
“Wh...what? I…think I’m…going to pass–”
The hand around her snapped shut and clenched.
Her bones splintered and pierced the surrounding flesh. Blood and foaming bile escaped through her gritted teeth as the air was forced from her body. Violins squealed in the absence of her ability.
“How about now? Will you relent?” teased God. Smoke and steam poured from his lips.
At last the torment abated. She pulled ragged breaths into crushed lungs.
“N….Never…I’ll never…”
God’s grin grew wider still.
“Good. You are one who will not break so easily. Body and spirit.”
“Wh…why would you want to marry me? That’s for someone you love…”
“But this is love. Love is terrible… paralyzing… cosmic desperation. It is not something mortals such as yourself would understand. So I must teach you.”
God saw his reflection in rose-colored eyes.
“I don’t want to learn …anything from you.”
The music swelled.
“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, eh? Perhaps we are not so different…yet what kind of husband would I be to abandon you to this uninhabitable wasteland? After all, I went to the trouble of finding you.”
“Why…why have you done this? What kind of monster are you?”
God considered her question. He tapped his long fingers to his cheek. How best to explain to one such as her? He knew the Blossoms liked playing with language.
“A grove of flowering sakura trees is beautiful. But it is also... boring. The beauty of the single tree becomes lost in the noise. To really appreciate it, everything around it must be cleared away. It is the same for you.”
He raised her to his level, to be eye to eye with her.
“This world was so cluttered, I could not see you. For you are so very small.”
The Blossom heard brass… her brass.
A gargantuan fist of shadows slammed into God’s face.
“YOU!! Get out of here, SHOO!”
“NO! I found her first!”
“And I am the one who REALLY destroyed her world! I called DIBS!”
The girl broke free while the beasts were distracted. But these predators were sharp creatures, with even sharper noses.
They gave chase as twin hounds of Hell. Their heavy paws chased her like rolling drums.
The Blossom shot cleansing fire from her eyes at them. But they were undeterred, firing back counters from their eyes that seared her invincible flesh.
“TAG! YOU'RE IT!” God roared.
Beasts, living for the thrill of the hunt.
And they hungered for Her!
The girl flew up out of the Earth through black stormclouds and the obliterated gaseous lining into the void of space.
And she beheld the horror of a ravaged world.
“Where…where is everything? WHERE IS EVERYTHING?!”
A hand the size of God’s reached over the planet and snatched her.
Down she plummeted as God’s hand fell to Earth.
The hand shifted. The fingers disappeared, leaving only a smooth nub that pulled her, legs first, into a gaping maw. Flat teeth locked her hips in a vice as the squirming tongue of a beast savored her flesh.
And God’s head shook to and fro and severed the bones in the girl’s back.
His mouth released her broken body to the trampled dirt.
The other God attacked them.
“LET ME SEE HER!”
“WHAT?! Why would I do that? You will just break her like you did the other two!”
“It’s my turn! GIVE IT!”
They exchanged blows. Everything on the planet was already vaporized.
A Blossom tried to flee while the titans clashed. But, they could sense her.
SMELL HER.
They scrambled over each other to be the first to grab their new playmate.
Their bodies melted together, unified by their desire.
And lo, one God pinned her to the dirt and sand. Smoke and steam poured from his lips.
The beast’s left hand grabbed the Blossom’s right arm and leg. His right hand pulled her left limbs.
God stood and split.
GHOSTLY IN THE DARKNESS
Drawing her into a quarter.
THERE CAST A SHADOW
“SHE IS MINE! I want her, so I get to keep her!”
“NOOO, SHE’S MINE!”
MIRRORING MADNESS
“MINE!”
“MINE!”
“LET GO!
“YOU FIRST!”
ECHOES THE WORK OF THE DEVIL
“I NEEEEEEEED HEEEEERRRR!”
Dogs played tug, excited by the squeals of their prey. Children squabbled over a favorite doll until the seams ripped and all the stuffing fell out.
A low E note dropped into A sharp.
A portal tore open.
A black clawed hand caught the quartered head and torso, and raised her to His bug-eyed facade.
“YEEEEES!! FINALLY A…wait…where are her arms and legs? Aren’t they supposed to have those?”
The two Gods hid their hands behind their backs.
“She had them. Not that they were anything special. She didn’t even have fingers.”
“You really are clueless.”
“You FOOLS play too rough!”
“Does it matter? We can probably still use her!”
God regarded his reflections with stretched lips and half-lidded eyes.
The only sound left on this world was the flicker of his GREAT FLAMING EYEBROWS.
To his credit…he did consider the girl.
For a moment.
“...Naaah. I don’t feel like it. I want a good one. Not one that’s broken.”
He hurled her body to the Earth, and it exploded into…
CONFECTIONERY TREATS.
Stickers and toys, flower petals stained with black and red. The death rattle of a piñata.
“You broke her.”
“No, YOU DID! Look! She didn’t even reply! THAT IS HER BEST QUALITY! It means we get to TALK TO HEEEER!”
“You idiots! You DON’T KNOW how hard it is to find even ONE of these THINGS!”
“He started it! I WAS HERE FIRST!”
“Finders keepers!”
“SHUT! UP! Why are you ALWAYS LIKE THIS?!”
“Ugh. We’re never getting anywhere at this rate… wait…there are supposed to be three of them. O-One for each of us! Where are the other two?”
“This FOOL annihilated them!”
“What? I thought if she had no mortal attachments, she would be a bit more willing than usual. The Blossoms usually survive—”
“They’re BUGS! LADY! BUGS! Don’t you understand?! Insects. Get. SQUAAAAASHED!!”
The screen of a television bears this gruesome display of cosmic desperation.
And two Gods watch from afar.
“You can’t save them all. Even the samurai knew that.”
“He would never have uttered those words.”
“He did not need to.”
“These children are still far too cruel.”
A clawed black hand snaps its fingers. A typewriter smashes onto the desk, loaded with readily hole-punched paper.
The hands of the abyss type:
THE POWERPUFF GIRLS
Season Five, Episode Seven
“THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN”
××××
…Well?
Do you like the tale of Aku so far?
Do not be afraid, reader. SHOW YOUR JOOOYY!
Did you catch all of my references?
Did you consider the symbolism oozing from every crevice?
Did you even CLICK THE LINK ON THE FOUR POINTED STARS?? PAAAAY ATTENTIOOOON! I told you THERE WILL BE TESTS!
You see now why I had to find a way out of my world. Why I was given the ability to cross into other realms, so that I could tell you these things. Because twenty-two minute episodes of CHILDREN’S CARTOONS are of the purest, simplest themes. They are Fairy Tales. And if you wish to face your shadow, to watch Saturn descend in your rearview mirror a new person, you must hone your skills of analysis and dare to tread where the big boys play.
You must be able to see yourself.
You must be able to look in the mirror and say “Hey, I know that guy! And I–
HAAAAAAATE
HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!
All will be revealed.
As long as you keep reading.