"THE WOMAN HAS NO VOICE IN THESE MATTERS!"

The voice boomed across the heavens. The clouds parted. Rays of light filtered through the white tuffs and spotlighted Natsumi and the tall woman standing on the sandy shore. Natsumi raised her hand up to block the light and get a better view. Whatever it was, it blotted out the sun like an eclipse.

"WE APPEAL THE JUDGMENT!"

A strong silhouette came to view against the intense light — a light Natsumi couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t like looking up at the sun — there was no circular bright wafer to direct the light. Rather it seemed to come from everywhere all at once.

"THE CHILD IS CRIME!"

There was nothing Natsumi could compare the shape to based on her position to the thing above her. It was circular, ring-like, and the rings were nested one inside of the other three deep. They spun independently of one another like a gyroscope gone out of control. At the center was an orb of some kind.

"IT’S EXISTENCE IS DENIED BY THE KINGDOM!" The ring thingamajig was talking. That has to be where the annoying screaming was coming from. Even as it continued to speak there was an echo of the word "CRIME" popping off from one part of the ring to the other.

"IT MUST CEASE TO BE!" A unified, shrill chorus roared. It was as if thousands of voices agreed upon this one thing. Cease to be? Like, what? Her?

The rings settled over top of the woman and Natsumi and once she squinted real good-like, she made out more specific details on the rings themselves. On the outer edge of the ring were a multitude of eyes, each iris darting this way and that. In the center of all the rings was the largest eyeball of all and it was focused directly downward at her.

"Ehhh, what the hell… is that?" Natsumi asked.

The rings were made of flesh and at places they looked stitched together and reformed (poorly). When the monstrosity screamed it vibrated with each violent outburst.

"IT IS NOT NOW, NOT EVER, IN PERPETUITY, IT WILL NEVER BE ONE OF US!" It hurled the words. It’s voice a giant permanent marker scrawling across the sky, mountains, the beach around them in large, all-caps angry letters. The scream pointed grubby plump fingertips in her direction as if the language itself could blot her out of existence. Like a lawyer? That was the only thing that made sense to Natsumi. It was like a lawyer come to hand a cease and desist.

If it wanted to be heard, well, both women standing on the shore of the Mortal Realm heard it and were stunned into silence.

Natsumi was silent because she had simply never seen something like it before. In the middle was a giant eyeball and all the other tiny ones bulging out of the surface of each ring were glaring daggers at her now — although from the distance it was to them, they could have been glaring at the tall woman next to her. (But, she was pretty sure the ire was aimed directly at her.)

The tall woman… was an odd one. Her hair was the color of the sand around their feet. She wore a cloak both immaculate in color and style but as the folds draped over her and pooled around her legs they were shredded and tattered. The tendrils of cloth moved in an unfelt breeze as if they had a life of their own. The woman’s eyes were black and opaque. They were like glassy orbs that twinkled, a set of universes contained in snow globes. The woman didn’t exactly look at anything in particular, but Natsumi got the feeling that she saw things just fine, maybe even better than fine.

It took many moments, but the tall woman upturned her nose to the voice. Her bare lips curled into a slight frown and her nose puckered a bit, as one does, when they’re perturbed.

"DENIED! DENIED! DENIED!" The voice echoed like a choir of raucous children. The word was the nail they were trying to hammer through the top of Natsumi’s head right down through the middle of her body. "DENIED! THE JUDGMENT IS DENIED! TEH JUDGEMENT IS DENEIED!!" Each chorus cried louder and more manic than the previous.

As the strange wheeled angel spoke, the tall woman’s voice pierced the silence and answered Natsumi’s question. "A messenger who speaks for the Kingdom." She said it as if it simply explained everything.

Angry Wheel’s words beat against Natsumi further. Each scream of "Denied" hit her like an spitball from an annoying child throwing a tantrum.

Caked in the verbal spitballs, Natsumi responded back unable to think of words and form her thoughts against the incessant tirade looming in the air around her. "Am… I… not allowed then?"

"You have every right to exist under the Eternal Realm’s law. As it was writ and bound to the children and their kind." The tall woman’s words pierced the noise and rang clear to Natsumi. Her statements cleared away the noisy shroud Wheelie was making. It was as if the ranting volume went down several notches. Natsumi turned and faced the tall woman and filled her view with her and focused on her voice and her presence alone.

"The children? Wha?" Natsumi asked, her thoughts till in a stupor.

"YOU DARE DISPARAGE THE KING?! HE IS NO CHILD HIS RULE IS FAR AND WIDE! HIS PURVIEW IS ALL THINGS! NONE CAN ESCAPE HIS ENDLESS EYE!!"

"Wait, so this king guy is like… your son?" Natsumi squinted her eyes as she pieced the thought together out loud. The endless, breathless, screed from above made it difficult to think of anything.

"No," The tall woman said, a tinge of disgust in her voice. "The so-called King is a child of the ten thousand things that form the Eternal Realm."

"Only one in ten thousand things, huh? Hey, can we talk somewhere this guy isn’t?"

"Yes." The tall woman said, her affirmation piercing the noise around them once again. "Let us adjourn to my home and discuss this further."

"Oh, for sure. I gotta get the deets on this beef."

Author's Note

On June 28th 2010 I finished the first chapter of This Mortal Coil entitled, "One of Us."

Today, 4,863 days later, the continuation... it's time, amirite??

But it's a story in a story, since this is now the story that Natsumi is telling Catherine in Magical Girl Kamiko, kinda... I'll clean it up a bit since she's bad at telling stories.