The Throne I Left

They didn’t stop until they were far into the woods, far away from Heaven and the city outside. They didn’t meet anyone as they ran, but even when they stopped, deciding they were far enough away and started making camp for the night, Johan still found himself anxiously listening for anything that didn’t belong.

Thankfully he had gotten his backpack back with all their clothes, or it would have been a cold night for them, only warmed by the fire Johan had made earlier.

By the time they were finally settled down, it had been hours since they left Heaven, exhausted but too jittery to use what was left of the night to sleep.

“What happened to the axe you stole?” Note asked as Signe appeared from the trees, white dress back on and the black a bundle in her arms.

“The shaft burnt.” She said flatly, gesturing to something by the fire before unceremoniously letting go of the clothes and dropping down next to them. “Only the blade is left.”

“I’m not surprised.” Johan muttered, Carlotta wasn’t going easy on her.

Note laughed from his seat beside him.

“I wasn’t expecting The Lady of Fire~” Signe drew out the title mockingly. “To be in a nightclub.”

“Would you have changed anything if you did?” Johan challenged with a grin, remembering the excited look in her eyes. “You seemed to enjoy it.”

“It was a good fight.” Signe shrugged with a laugh. Then a thought seemed to hit her and she fell silent. “Did you see the soldier from Envy’s army?”

Note nodded. “The one that stopped her from following.”

“Weren’t they all from Envy’s army?” Johan asked. They were talking about the same horde of enemies, right?

“No, only that one, the rest weren’t wearing helmets.”

Johan sat up higher at the words. “...He went between us and Carlotta…”

Somber silence fell. The only sound was the crackling from the fire as they exchanged serious looks. Johan’s eyes trailed to the dark woods around them.

“..That's weird.” Note said, breaking the silence.

“It is.” Johan agreed somberly. There had to be more to it if only one of Envy’s soldiers were there. That wasn’t a coincidence. And the fact that he helped them get away? It didn’t make sense. Envy wouldn’t want to help them.

“Maybe the soldier just…mistook us for someone else?” Note said thoughtfully. “But…There was something else that seemed weird.”

Johan raised an eyebrow, turning to look at Note.

“In Lust’s office,” Note hesitated, then met Johan’s eyes. “Did you see the bedroom?”

Johan nodded. “Yeah.”

“I found the journal in the bedside table.” Note nodded at the journal in Johan’s hands.

Johan frowned. “What about it?”

Note hesitated again, staring into the fire with a deep frown.

“I think he was living there.” He finally said.

Johan froze. From across the fire Signe straightened up.

“What do you mean?” Johan asked tensely. He didn’t like where this was going.

“I think he was living in his office.” Note said seriously, meeting Johan’s eyes.

“He’s not that much of a workaholic,” Johan snorted. Of course Lust wouldn’t live in the night club, that was ridiculous. “The bed is probably for other reasons.”

“No. There were all these things, sentimental items, clothes, books.” Note continued. “The picture.”

That didn’t make sense. The Lust Johan knew hated working, why would he choose to live in his work office? He wouldn’t.

“Something’s not right here.” Signe voiced Johan’s rising doubts. “He has a co-owner he hates and he lives in his office? That doesn’t sound like him at all.”

Johan chewed on the inside of his cheek, trying to push down his rising feelings of unease. “I’m sure it’s nothing. With his powers he can look like anyone he wants. He would have no problem getting away if something was wrong.”

Even to him the argument sounded weak. When he thought back on it, it had been weird that Lust was so angry. Lust rarely got angry, he was too confident to let anyone get under his skin like that.

The fact that he also volunteered to do the dirty work and deal with Johan while he still thought he was just an intruder was weird too.

No. Johan shook his head. Never mind that.

If there was anything bad going on then Johan didn’t want to know. He might have been Lust’s friend before, but that changed when he helped kill Note and Signe. Whatever was going on, Lust deserved it.

“If anything is going on then it’s his own fault.” Johan said stubbornly. “...Unfortunately.”

In comparison to the others, Johan was much younger than them when everything happened. Only Frey and Gluttony were his age, and so when Greed had parted them all into groups of three, Note and Signe’s groups got closer much quicker than Johan’s group.

Eventually though, he grew closer to both Lust and Envy. He got used to them and after time, they became like his family. They helped when he was grieving his dad, while Note and Signe were dealing with their own stuff, having just become deities, and his actual family was off doing his own thing.

He had thought they would be friends forever…but it turned out very little in Johan’s life lasted.

Well…Outside of this.

Johan looked at Note and Signe, both with him, resting around the fire. They even came with him to Heaven, the place where they were killed. They found him when he tried to go alone. They were his family.

And they got what they went for.

Johan looked down at the journal in his hands. The cover was brown from old age and constant use, with a complex symbol of some rectangle sewn on the front in red string.

It almost seemed too small for all the trouble they went through to get it. But at the same time he felt such relief at having it in his own hands, and not the enemy’s.

Johan flipped through it. On every page were new adventures his dad had lived, and visions he had seen.

The very first pages of the book was from when his dad had been found by the Fate before him, a very, very long time ago. He wrote about first entering Heaven and meeting the new Life/Death, who was his age, but most of all he wrote about leaving his brother.

Johan’s eyes were drawn to the sketch, halfway hidden by the words. A young teen with ruffled black hair, glaring angrily despite the tears that were clearly running down his cheeks. “-he told me Poe could not not come with us, but that he will make sure he is ok. I will probably never see him again. Deities and humans do not mix well, I am told.”

Johan frowned and continued flipping though the journal until another page caught his eyes and he paused, his mood quickly souring.

The sketch depicted a young man with wild black hair at Heaven’s gates. The new deity of Wealth being met with high praises and bootlicking, with a pleased smirk on his face. His tissue-like, white button shirt and black pants painted a picture of deep contrast as the crowd practically bowed down in front of him.

Greed.

Johan felt his lips pull down. It was different from seeing the sketch of him as a teen. This man was the one Johan knew. Even in this old sketch he looked exactly the same as the last time Johan saw him.

Johan glanced down at the text beneath it.

“Today my brother entered Heaven as a deity! It has been a decade since I had to leave him and by now he has become an established person, I am so proud of him!”

With a huff, Johan quickly flipped to a different page, accidentally going near the end of the journal- and immediately froze.

This time it was the entry of a vision. A sketch of a young child in rugged clothes was sketched on the page, curled into a ball against a dirty brick wall. It was a simple sketch, but Johan recognized it right away.

“Today I saw a vision of a child. Not unusual in itself, but this one is special. He raised his head and met my eyes like he knew I was there. I am sure this is my successor, my son. I will find him, yet it saddens me to see he is still so very young, he will not know a life outside Heaven.”

It was the first time his dad had seen him, Johan realized. He looked back at the sketch. What would life have been like if his dad hadn’t found him? Probably not a very long one. He couldn’t remember anything from that time, he only knew what he had been told, which wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to know he wasn’t missing anything. The sketch only confirmed that.

Unlike most other deities whose powers transferred to a random fitting person once the previous owner died, Fate was unique in that the previous owner would see their successor in a vision and find them, bring them back to Heaven with the opportunity to teach them, and in Johan’s case, even raise them.

His dad had been found in his late teens and didn’t take over the powers until he was in his forties, which was normal for Fates. Some even took the powers even later. So far, Johan was the youngest one.

He flipped through the rest of the journal, there wasn’t much left after that. Many pages were ripped out near the end. Some were put back randomly but most were just gone, some of which were the pages Johan had gotten from the merchant only a day ago.

He gently put them back into their right place.

“What’s in it?” Note asked curiously, having watched Johan read for a while.

“My dad would always write down his visions and stuff.” Johan told him. “I don’t know why anyone would want it, really. Everything has already happened, it’s basically just a normal journal at this point.”

Note hummed and shuffled closer, leaning his elbows on the log behind them to peer onto the open page depicting another one of his dad’s visions.

“...It’s weird, isn’t it.” Johan started, eyes strained on the journal. “I’ve had these powers for years, but I’ve only had one single vision. My dad used to have them daily.”

He fell quiet for a second, closing the journal and running a hand down the cover. He wasn’t surprised to see both Signe and Note watching him when he looked up.

“Before you guys came back,” Johan continued, smiling without amusement. “I was an adventurer, right? I would go and do whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted. And for all those four years I didn’t have a single vision. At some point I thought the powers might have passed on to someone else.”

“Can that happen?” Signe asked, her tone serious.

Johan shook his head. “I would know if there was a new Fate. I would see it, like every other Fate. And I could still control my ribbons so…It was more of a feeling, I guess. For all those years before you guys came back, I didn’t do anything…and everything was fine!” His mouth clicked shut, eyebrows drawing together. He stared at the fire as he continued. “There wasn’t a big change like with you two, where people stopped dying and everything. Maybe Fate just isn’t necessary.”

Both Note and Signe were watching him silently with concerned faces. They glanced at each other and for a second Johan thought that would be the end of the conversation.

“Fate might not be necessary, but you are, Johan.” Note said gently.

Well. He didn’t know about that.

“Maybe no deity is necessary.” Signe thought aloud.

Johan’s eyes snapped to her in shock. “What?”

But Signe just shrugged, as if she didn’t just say that. “There has to have been a time where humans lived without the deities. It’s not like any of us created the world. We are not more important than any human.”

“I guess…” Johan hesitated. She was right, of course. As far as anyone knew deities didn’t make the world, so yeah, humans must have been there first. Really, deities didn’t…do anything.

Signe watched him with intense eyes. “Do you think Odin is unimportant?”

“What- No!” Johan protested.

“How about Leif?” She challenged, leaning forward. “He’s just a fisher, who really needs him? Anyone could take his place.”

Beside him, Note flinched. “Hey-”

“Of course he is important!” Johan snapped, then realized what she was doing and faltered, eyes closing.

A faint smile passed Signe’s lips, eyes turning gentle. “Everyone is important to someone. They might not need you in Heaven, but we need you here. And even if we didn’t, we still want you here. So don’t think too much about it, ok? Life doesn’t need to have a big purpose to it, you can just enjoy the time you have.”

Johan bit his lip.

“Signe is right.” Note said seriously. “Your place is right here with us. And no matter what you choose to do, I’m coming with you. I think I talk for Signe too, when I say this.”

Johan raised an eyebrow and huffed out a laugh. “Even if I want to sell fish for the rest of my life?”

Note nodded without any hesitation. “Yes, even selling fish.”

A small laugh bubbled up in Johan, the sound filling the quiet, chilled air around the fire. Note hated selling fish, yet he would do it for Johan? A small smile pulled on his lips. A heavy arm slung over his shoulder, the weight comforting.

Signe huffed. “I am not leaving, that’s for sure. I love this life, living in the village, selling fish with you guys… sparring…”

“You sure about that?” Johan laughed, he knew she loved living on the island, but he could tell all she said wasn’t all completely true.

“Ok,” She quickly relented. “There’s been a lack of sparring recently, but I’ll figure that out eventually.”

Johan laughed and even Note let out a snort.

“I’m sorry, I really can’t keep up.” He said, but Signe just shook her head with a smile.

The conversation ended there.

The fire grew weaker and weaker as time passed. Signe ended up falling asleep, curled up next to it while Note was slowly but surely leaning more and more of his weight on Johan as he started to doze off.

Johan was the only one still awake. He couldn’t shake the feeling that someone might come after them. Absent-mindedly he flipped through the journal while keeping an eye on the dark forest around them and feeding the fire every now and then.

Then something landed on his shoulder and Johan looked down to see Note’s sleeping face, a small crease formed in the space between his eyes.

He felt the vibration before he heard the soft snoring and had to force back a laugh. He turned back to the journal, feeling Note’s long hair tickle his neck.

Then suddenly a sharp pain hit him. He gasped as a jolt went through his head, his vision blurring and his body tensing up as he almost fell forward.

But just as quickly as it came, it disappeared.

What happened?

Johan sucked in a deep breath, suddenly on high alert. He scanned the forest. Was there someone there? Did someone attack him?

But just as his vision started to clear up, it hit him again. The journal fell from his hands, and the air was pushed from his lungs. His vision went black.

The first thing he noticed was the air. The smell of smoke and the slight chill in the air were both gone. Then the sounds came. Screams of terror and cries of war came from all around him and he opened his eyes to see red.

His heart hammered in his chest. What-?!

Then suddenly the back of the person in front of him changed. Warm blood splattered across his face and her jerked back, falling to one knee with his arms coming up to shield his head. The ground shook in heavy thumps.

With shaky hands he quickly dragged his sleeve over his face and looked up. He was in the middle of a huge cave, the roof opening up to bright green and purple flowing across the night sky.

People were running around him, and for a moment he thought he was going to get trampled as hordes of people passed, swords held high in the air.

That wasn’t the most shocking thing, however. He could only stare as a big group of ugly giants charged at the humans, Slinging big tree trunks around, sending people flying through the air, and throwing heavy boulders. Corpses littered the blood soaked ground.

Cries of rage and pain filled the air along with loud, angry roars as they clashed. And Johan was right in the middle of it all.

He ducked as they swung at him from both sides, his hands instinctively going up to cover his head.