Free. Light. Comfortable.
Buu grew aware of the mist around him without opening his eyes. He stood within a press of people, each face colourless and lost. Pulling himself taller, he tried to get his bearings, and much to his surprise, he found he could look out over the crowd, suddenly risen up as if he had grown four feet. He looked down at his body, but couldn’t quite focus on it.
Scanning the crowd, Buu saw no end to the dark space they stood in. It stretched under a dome of stars — each twinkling nearer and brighter than he had ever seen. Without thinking, he reached for one, but it remained as frustratingly out of reach as ever.
Buu studied the faces around him. A jolt of surprise shook him as he realized he knew several of them— ghosts from the university, sharp and clear, though still washed of colour. Among them, a handful of soldiers, teachers, and students whose faces he knew stared into the middle distance, confused. His stomach dropped when he spotted Aru.
She stood nearby, looking at nothing with a small frown on her face, brows narrowed as they always were when she worked on a problem. Buu stepped in front of her, the crowd of ghosts pushed easily aside with a thought.
Moving felt good. The weight and pain that always haunted his body had fallen away, leaving him light and agile. He wanted to run, to leap, to frolic like he’d never gotten the chance to. But he knew he was dead — or at least among the dead — and celebrating seemed inappropriate.
He stared into Aru’s eyes, and she squinted back at him as if not quite able to keep him in focus.
“Buu?” she asked, hesitating as if she couldn’t quite remember.
Buu swallowed and nodded, a knot forming in his throat. “Yes, it’s me.”
Relief mixed with the befuddlement on Aru’s face. “That’s good. I’m glad you’re okay. Have you seen… Idah? Or… Sanir? I’m worried about them.”
Buu turned slowly, studying the faces closest to them. He saw Vaelis blinking slowly a few yards away. Professor Ryoh scowling uncertainly at the stars. The soldier that had let Tiy, Kijah, and himself out of the wall to go ghost-hunting stood with his eyes closed, swaying slightly. But Buu could not see Idah, nor the headmaster.
Returning his attention to Aru, he shook his head. “They’re not here. They’re okay.”
His words seemed to puzzle Aru further, and she didn’t reply, lost in thought. She didn’t seem likely to move on her own, but Buu didn’t want to leave her alone. Gently, he took her hand, pulling her along behind him as he pushed further into the crowd.
Beneath him, he saw a path of white stones, stretching ahead and disappearing behind him as soon as he took the next step. Not seeing anywhere else to go, he followed it. As he walked, the ghosts closest to him drifted gently after him, plodding and numb.
He heard the yelps and grumbles of fear before he saw Tuag. The grimm careened across the path ahead of him, eating up the distance in great bounding strides. He ran in sweeping circles, bowling freely through the dead and knocking them aside like a toddler toppling blocks.
The grimm towered over them here, easily a head taller than the tallest ghost. His fur didn’t seem solid anymore, smoky tendrils of black curling off his midnight form. Where before his eyes had burned like embers, here they shone like stars — bright and cold. His teeth stood out starkly beside his fur, no longer shards of black glass but white fangs of bone. His booming bark shook the ground beneath Buu.
Buu watched, unable to help the frightened, almost hysterical smile that stretched across his face. Tuag’s obvious happiness infected him, the joy of the beast thrumming through the air like a harp chord. But Tuag had never looked more otherworldly or dangerous. It did not help that Tuag’s bloody teeth were the last thing Buu remembered before this place.
Still, Tuag looked at home and at peace for the first time since Buu had met him. He decided to take the risk and called out to Tuag, waving an arm in greeting. Besides, the grimm had already killed him, what was left to fear?
Tuag’s ears swiveled, his head following a moment later to stare at Buu as his body ground to a halt. They stared at each other for a long moment. If Buu didn’t know better, he would have called the look on the grimm’s wolfish features embarrassment.
“Hey, Tuag. You look different,” Buu offered, keeping his tone friendly.
His voice broke whatever spell had held the grimm in place and if Tuag had felt any shame at being discovered playing, it dissipated in the space of a breath. He dropped his chest to the ground, tail lashing the air, leaving smoky trails in its wake.
Buu dodged out of the way as the grimm charged him. Tuag skirted around him, nipping and jumping and prancing, night-black tongue lolling from his mouth. Trying to join in, Buu capered with the grimm, dancing and jumping with him as Tuag played. The grimm didn’t seem capable of interacting without causing some pain, his nips and playful pawing leaving Buu feeling battered and bruised, even here.
Buu put his arms out, surrendering, and watched as Tuag shook himself. Wearing a smile that stretched his face, Buu marvelled at Tuag’s joy — as pure and exuberant as any dog back home. When the grimm began trotting down the path, continuing in the direction Buu had walked, Buu took Aru’s spirit’s hand once more, and followed with lighter steps.
The ghosts did not shy away from the grimm here. They watched him with blank expressions, heads turning slowly to keep him in sight. They still seemed to gravitate to Buu though, following as he led Aru towards their unknown destination.
Eventually, a bulky mass appeared on the horizon stretching as far as the eye could see, blocking the path completely. As they neared, Buu found that his eyes could not quite comprehend what they saw. One moment, the obstruction looked like a canyon of reddish stone, one thin crack breaking its streaky surface where the path bisected it. The next, it seemed like Silver Lake had risen to form a great wall of sparkling, red-hued water, complete with splashing waves. A blink, and a tree, larger than anything Buu could imagine, stretched in all directions, a hollow carved out to allow the path through.
The loitering dead bunched thickest near the pathway entrance to the great barrier, but to Buu’s surprise, none stepped through the gap that always appeared for the path. They stood, cheek to jowl, just staring at it, wide-eyed and frightened. The uneasy shuffle that rippled through the watchers seemed ever-present, as if they were a single, shuddering creature trying to get warm.
Buu’s head began to ache as they drew closer. The barrier pushed on his mind and sent a spike of unease through his belly. It remained bearable as he pushed closer, staying on Tuag’s heels, but he could tell by Aru’s squirming that the discomfort of it was worse for the spirits.
Buu paused when Tuag veered from the path, charging around in a large circle. He snapped at the ghosts, growling and bullying them up to the tear in the barrier, now a wall of rippling silver scales. They shied away, trying to backtrack but unwilling to walk directly into the grimm as he herded them towards the gap.
In an instant, Buu understood.
Tuag pushed people through to the other side. He helped them to pass on to whatever lay beyond, and without him here to do his job… they just hadn’t. People didn’t stop dying, but they couldn’t move on, just gathering at this bottleneck in droves until this place overflowed back into the lands of the living. They would all be stuck forever in this stretching, aching landscape unless the grimm could do his job.
Aru would be stuck. His uncle and Idah would idle here forever when their times came. Bile rose in his throat — or perhaps the memory of bile — at the thought of his allies and loved ones standing among the staring, waiting dead for an eternity. Buu took one long look at Aru before making up his mind.
He pulled her forward, gently, towards the thin passage. Tuag had forced the first person into the gap, and more after them, all with distress clear on their features. To his credit, the grimm didn’t look like he enjoyed their discomfort, but he worked with a look of keen, neutral concentration.
“Excuse me,” Buu offered as he pushed gently past the spirits at the wall. He spoke softly, squeezing by them and dragging an unhappy Aru behind him.
The shifting nature of the barrier made it disorienting to walk through, and Buu resisted the urge to stare up at the night sky, the ocean’s waves, the canopy of rippling leaves. Keeping his gaze on the path, he marched, and listened to the others following behind. Whether the grimm had won out and forced them after him, or they had chosen to follow his lead, Buu couldn’t guess.
Aru’s ghost trembled in Buu’s grip. Buu glanced back to check on her and stopped dead. The canyon pass had grown close, with room to walk only in single file, the walls pressing against their shoulders. Wherever it touched Aru, or the ghosts behind her, it snagged at them, little pieces coming away like wool caught on brambles.
Images flashed in the strands of Aru that caught on the canyon. Snapshots of a quiet, bookish life. Of a wedding that wasn’t hers. Of playing with a sister she loved with everything but didn’t get to keep.
Buu shuddered, feeling the pull of the memories and holding himself back from them. The urge to dive into them, to live them, filled him like a hunger. But he fought against the impulse — looking into someone else’s life, experiencing it without their permission felt like the grossest violation. He couldn’t do that to Aru, who had brought him to the university, and tried to keep him safe.
Buu tightened his grip on Aru’s hand, turning to face forward once more and pressing on, teeth aching as he clenched them. Despite doing his utmost not to touch the canyon walls himself, they pushed in so close in places that he had no choice but to scrape his chest and back against them to squeeze through. He closed his eyes, bracing to lose a piece of himself — a price paid to the gap. But it didn’t come. The passage did not take from him, only leaving him with a bruised sensation in his chest.
Looking back, he saw nothing of himself in the churning waters of the dark sea around them, nor tangled in the roots of the tree trunk as it disappeared above them. Any relief he felt drained away as he saw Aru squeeze through the same tight section, unravelling as it pulled larger chunks of memory away — a mother, somewhere, with a soft voice and deep love of books that would pass on to both her daughters.
Aru didn’t look like Aru anymore. Her features faded with each loss, leaving behind a serene, beautiful, youthful face. She looked like the woman Aru might have been if life had never laid a hand on her. An existence without friction or hardship or care. The lines on her face melted away, eyes softening, the thin scar above one eyebrow fading. Her hair flew loose around her shoulders in a halo of shining black. Buu smiled, and she smiled back, eyes unafraid as they stepped together from the canyon. Other spirits followed, each scrubbed beatifically clean.
The path they had followed no longer appeared underfoot, replaced by open sky and glittering stars. They stood in the center of a moonless night, the only point of reference the reaching tree, tossing ocean, gargantuan cliffs behind them, and a series of marking stones, hovering in the air a distance ahead, parallel to the cliff.
Buu stood, taking in the vastness of it all. A dozen or so spirits poured out of the cliff behind him and Aru. They didn’t wait for him to lead them onwards now that they could see the end; they whooped and ran, laughing and hollering like children towards the floating stones, and the distant figure waiting there.
Tuag squeezed out last, his bulk pressing through the ocean waves rather than fitting through the gap. His tail wagged as he watched his charges run towards their respite, a wolfish grin splitting his mouth into panting satisfaction.
Aru stayed with Buu, but he could feel her drive to run with the others vibrating through his hand. Not quite ready to let go, Buu took off at a sprint. He still felt lighter and more agile than he ever had when alive, but next to Aru and the other spirits flitting across the stars, even his new freedom seemed clunky and cumbersome in comparison.
Buu slowed as the figure waiting at the marking stones came into view. The man stood towering above Buu, massive by any standard. He wore leather armour, magnificently fit to his form to show off sections of hard muscle. His ochre skin shifted as Buu watched, as if storm clouds whirled just beneath, illuminating him from within. Atop his shoulders, a bison’s head watched with patient disinterest as the spirits passed by.
The spirits disappeared as they crossed the threshold of the marking stones, dissolving into mist with a sigh. It might have alarmed Buu, in another place, but here he felt only peace at the sight.
“Hello?” Buu called up to the bison-man as he drew near, Aru pulling him closer.
The bison-man ran a hand through his shaggy fur, pushing it from small eyes and squinting down at Buu. With a grunt of surprise, the bison-man squatted to get a closer look. A cloud of sound seemed to follow him — a distant clash of steel and twang of bowstrings.
“Hello.” The bison-man formed the words from a chorus of indistinct battle cries.
Buu shifted back and forth on his toes, suddenly self-conscious for the first time since dying. Aru hovered at his side, craning her neck to see past the bison-man. A wave of guilt washed over him for holding her back, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to let go of her hand. He knew without any doubt that she would run, and he wasn’t ready to be alone yet. He pointed past the bison-man to the marking stones, clearing his throat.
“May we… Can we go through?”
He didn’t know what made him ask when the others had simply run in, but it felt rude not to. Whatever the others saw beyond the markers that made them whoop with delight, he didn’t see.
“She can,” the bison-man gestured to Aru warmly. “But you… What are you?”
Buu blinked up at him for a moment, mouth slightly agape as he processed the question. He had hoped that this creature would be able to answer his questions — he hadn’t considered that it would have some of its own.
“My name is Buu Yati, and I’m Zadyan. From Red Birch Village.” Buu scratched his neck, seeing in the bison’s eyes that this was not the answer the creature was looking for. “I’m… a boy. And dead, I think.”
The bison-man shook his head. “The only thing you should be by the time you get here is dead, and it is the one thing you are not. Only the dead can pass here; I’m afraid you’ll have to go back.”
Buu licked his lips, glancing over his shoulder towards the wall and its slender gap. Tuag waited by the entrance, sitting with a bored hunch as he watched Aru and Buu. When he noticed Buu look back, his tail thumped twice.
“But… are you sure I’m not dead? I think I remember dying.”
“I have seen hundreds of thousands of souls walk through these gates,” the bison-man gestured towards the marking stones. “I think I know what the dead look like, and you are not dead.” He squinted harder at Buu, reaching out a massive finger and prodding him gently in the chest. “Though… I’ll admit, you don’t seem all that alive either.”
Aru squeezed Buu’s hand, meeting his eyes with a puzzled, kind expression. He knew that she didn’t remember him, the concern on her face for a lost boy rather than a friend. He knew he should let her go, should let her leave for whatever afterlife awaited her, but he found himself breathing quicker at the thought of being stuck in this place alone. At least with Aru, he had the illusion of company.
“Are you the reason Tuag is back?” the bison-man asked, breaking Buu from his thoughts.
Buu shrugged and nodded. “Sort of? I think he got himself back but used me somehow. He killed me, and then we were both here.”
“Interesting.” The bison-man rubbed his chin. “I wish I knew enough to help you, little one, but this is not my domain. My lover is meant to be watching this gate, but she has run off elsewhere. I’ve been keeping an eye on it, but I’m afraid I don’t have her expertise in death and its…” he waved an encompassing hand at Buu, “… variants.”
“Will she be back soon?” Buu asked, hopeful that someone might be able to tell him what to do.
The bison-man stretched, scratching one arm as his face twitched downward in annoyance. Buu had never seen a bison up close, but he doubted the expression was one they naturally wore.
“She’s been gone at least a decade by human reckoning. ‘Just a quick errand,’ she said. ‘Just watch this for me, will you?’” he shook his head, shaggy hair swinging. “Take it from me, kid. Don’t get yourself caught up with women. Especially goddesses. That goes double for sisters.”
Buu felt like a yawning hole had opened beneath his feet, eager to swallow him up. The stars, wonderous and beautiful a moment ago, suddenly felt cold and distant.
“Could I speak to Anaya please? If she’s available. She’ll know what to do.”
Buu didn’t recognize the bison-man, but if he could contact goddesses, then perhaps he could get in touch with the Lady in Light. Buu had not lived a long life, but he had always been faithful to Anaya, and the Lady would surely be able to help him. Even if She couldn’t, She would know what he should do next.
“Anaya? Is she that Zadyatan queen-god?” the bison-man asked, tilting his head like a curious dog.
“Yes, that’s right. The Lady in Light… she has a flaming sword…?” Buu prompted. How could anyone not know her?
The bison-man glanced back at the gap and Tuag’s waiting form, and seeing no other spirits coming, settled himself on crossed legs with a gale-force sigh. He regarded Buu with a look Buu had seen enough times to recognize even on the bison’s unfamiliar features: pity.
“Listen — Buu, was it? – it’s complicated, but your goddess isn’t here in the same way I am. She was human, you see. An incredible human, but the god bit came later. Deifying a human spirit… well it’s a messy process. Everything got very… metaphysical for a bit. It took a century of your time to get everything sorted.
“And to be honest, even if she was the communicative type,” he waved a hand to indicate himself, “your lot made her much more interested in the living. She seemed happy enough to leave the afterlife to the old guard.”
Buu ran a hand through his hair, his eyes burning with frustrated tears. His face grew hot and a lump made itself at home in his throat. He cast about for something — anything — to give him a sense of direction. When he found nothing but impassive stars, he couldn’t stop the catch in his throat from becoming full blown sobs.
“What… what am I supposed to do now?” he choked out, gripping Aru’s hand tightly as she squeezed his shoulder with her free arm, a mild look of alarm on her face at this strange, crying boy beside her.
The bison-man sighed again, blowing Buu’s hair away from his face. The smell of cud sat heavy on the hot, humid breath and Buu coughed to clear it away. After a moment, the bison-man shrugged his huge shoulders.
“If you’re not quite dead, maybe the living will take you back. If not… I’m sure Tuag could use some help clearing this backlog. It will probably take a decade or so to get it done as is.”
Buu nodded slowly, wiping at his tears. He had hoped for something a bit more certain than maybes and could-dos, but at this point, having anything to try was an improvement on standing around the afterlife crying in front of a god that wasn’t his. He turned back towards the canyon, taking two steps before Aru pulled against him and the bison-man cleared his throat.
“You can’t take her with you,” he said. “The passage only works one way for the dead. She would be obliterated if you dragged her back through. She belongs here.”
“But…” Buu started, but stopped when he saw Aru struggling against his grip.
He could barely feel her. She had been content enough to stand and comfort him, but now that he tried to walk backwards — away from her waiting respite — she dug in her heels and squirmed against his grip. Her efforts felt like a breeze, and he knew with a terrible certainty that he could drag her anywhere he wanted and she would not be able to resist.
‘What are you?’ The bison-man had asked, and suddenly Buu wasn’t sure.
Buu faced Aru, chest tight with grief. She smiled at him, but a scared tightness lingered around her eyes. She didn’t know him anymore. She didn’t trust this stranger not to hurt her, not to obliterate her because he needed to feel less alone.
Buu touched her face, trying to lock her into his memory. He liked her like this — scrubbed free of her work and the eternal struggle for grants. The anger she wore when she spoke of the soldiers at the university, or an experiment not cooperating, had evaporated.
“Thank you for trying to keep me safe,” Buu said, holding his breath as he released her hand.
To his surprise, she didn’t run right away. She lingered, matching his stare and placed one finger on his chest, pointing towards his heart. She smiled at him one more time before nodding at the bison-man and disappearing through the gate.
“What was she trying to say?” Buu asked, his hand over the place she had touched.
The bison-man smiled. “I think she was thanking you back. For helping her through the passage. A spirit can’t cross it on their own, and Tuag can be an… untender guide.”
Buu didn’t want to know what waited for him back with the living. His body, weak to begin with, would not bounce back easily from this ordeal. Even if it did, Buu couldn’t bear the thought of hauling it around anymore. The deadweight of it would be almost unbearable after the freedom, the lightness of this place.
He ran his fingers in small circles where Aru had touched him, considering. Tuag, larger than life, was a terrifying prospect for anyone, but to face him nipping at your heels as you walk the path away from everything you have ever known? To lose everything that made you, you with a monster baying behind you? It would turn the passage into a gauntlet.
Buu nodded to himself before turning back to the bison-man. “I think I’ll help out here — if that’s alright. At least for a while. It’s not like I have anything else to do.”
The bison-man’s smile lit the sky.