A Dimensional Love Story (Fist of the North Star and Flight of the Intruder)

The corridor was the central metaphor for existence as he understood it. Its dimensions were simple. It extended infinitely forward, and no distance backwards. Even if he could go backwards, he would never think to try to. Destiny is forwards. Backwards is nothing, can be nothing, must be nothing. Backwards matters only inasmuch as its nothingness is why he must move forwards.

The world as he knew it was a sphere he lived inside, watching shadows on the glass around him. There is no up or down, no left or right, just the shadows shifting endlessly about him. A line differentiates sea from sky, but he has long since learned that this is a misnomer, that the sea and sky are just two divisions of  space, like day and night. One can no more crash into the sea than one can fly through the azure vault. 

He has long known that space is arbitrary. That the world is formless void between things. His corridor is divided by objects. The endless repetition of the fighting men. These are less obstacles than markers, there to make the corridor a corridor. He rarely falls to a low-level fighting man, able as he is to dispatch them with one kick. He rarely falls into a pit, as it is just careless to do so.

From time to time there are the pests. Irritating shadows that buzz around the periphery of his sphere. He struggles to train his sights on them, unleash the rattling hail that unnerves them and sends them away. Inasmuch as his life has purpose, this is it. Taking the shadows on his wall and spinning them, moving them into focus.

He does not know what stands at the end of the corridor. All he knows is that he desires to advance further. To be further away from the forbidden "behind" and closer to the unknown. He has heard others speak of princesses and castles. He does not know anything of this.

At times he dreams, long silent dreams of darkness. He has no sense of how long the dreams are. The sphere always waits for him. The shadows always flicker anew. But he dreams of a space in which there is motion, in which there is not void but aether, where he can move through this aether instead of watching as the shadows chase.

All he knows is that from time to time the corridor ends. Sometimes it ends with a moment of pain. Other times with victorious single combat over the occasional enemy worthy of his skills. Past that is always only blackness. Past the blackness, corridors.

He wants to run, to move through space, to feel the passage of time as something other than the flickering light of his perfectly still sphere. He does not know how he is aware of these things. But he is aware of them, just as he is aware that there

In the blackness, he wonders about the world. About what might lie beyond corridors. From time to time, when there are no fighting men or pits, he stops and looks around. To his left is a landscape, endlessly cordoned off and kept from him. Below him is floor. Above him is azure sky he can never reach. To his right

is another space behind his eyes. That he stares at the sphere, but in turn that his act of staring is endlessly watched. He spins the shadows around, always aware of this other person who

is a void, shapeless, formless, from which he knows there is purpose. He cannot bring himself to look at it for long. Its flickering shadows are too much for him. The space is distorted, as though projected on bent glass, and he does not understand. But he knows, somehow, that this is both why he must walk through the corridor and what waits for him at the end. Perhaps it is a princess. Perhaps not. He finds he does not care.

is driven, always moving forwards. This person whose irritation at the pests exceeds his own. He finds that he likes this person. He finds that this person's life of forward, deliberate motion suits him. He does not need to see the person. He never could, lurking as they do in some imagined space within the single radiant point at the center of his being. But he loves this person, whoever, whatever they are.

Whatever is in that space justifies him. Watching him projected on this screen, reaching for him. Perhaps he is nothing but flickering noise to them. Perhaps he is loved by them. He does not need to know. He need only move forward, secure in the knowledge that they are there.