Celebration time!
According to FanFiction.net, this story is now over 100,000 words long! 103,712 words, to be precise… dear God what have I gotten myself into… 
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Chapter 39
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That was the end of the memory… I backed out, looked down, and found that my hands were shaking. That last image of Onua, what remained of him, slumped against the end of the tunnel and waiting for it to end… it was haunting. Sitting across the table, Nuparu sat with a pensive look on his face, elbows on the table and resting his chin on folded hands.
“It took them a month to find his body…” he began. “Then, of course, there was a big service, the building of the memorial… Everyone believed he’d died just working as he always had. No one except me knew that he ended it himself.”
“You think it was on purpose?” I asked, a bit shocked.
“He’d never have dug into fractured bedrock like that without reinforcing the tunnel along the way,” Nuparu explained. “One way or the other, he knew that tunnel was coming down. It wasn’t an impulsive thing; he’d been at that tunnel for hours. I just showed up at the right time to see the end.”
“Right… and for a moment there, he sounded almost… happy,” I remembered.
“He knew the collapse was imminent,” Nuparu said dourly. “He could sense it… and by that point, death was a comfort to him. Three months of this stuff,” he pointed at the crystal still lying on the table, “three months was all it took to bring him to that point.” He sighed. “I asked myself a lot of questions afterwards, you know? About what I could’ve done differently… in the end, I came to the conclusion that by that point, I could do nothing for him. That’s how I’ve lived with it ever since.”
“And no one else figured it out?” I wondered.
“I never told anyone. Never. It would’ve destroyed his reputation, and you can see how much he means to the people of this city.” I immediately thought of Jahlpu when he said that; my brother practically lived his life by the words of Onua. “His legacy remains untarnished, and it’s better that way,” Nuparu concluded.
“What about… as a warning?” I wondered. “I mean, if this stuff destroyed Onua, wouldn’t that serve as a very strong warning against people… you know, using it?”
“It’s rare, and I buy up all of the crystals they find and keep them locked away,” Nuparu explained. “That way, no warning is necessary.”
“The best of both worlds…” I mumbled.
“Exactly.” We paused for a moment… then Nuparu got up, picked up a set of tongs, and walked over to the tempering furnace. He pulled out the blade, took it to another tank, one filled with water, and dropped it in. With a loud, hissing sound, steam erupted from the tank; Nuparu took a step back, waited for the boiling to stop, then pulled out the blade and laid it on the work bench.
“So, why did you tell me, then?” I wondered.
“As a warning,” he replied.
“But, you just said…”
“Not the drugs,” he cut me off. He looked down the blade to ensure it was still straight. “As a warning about blind devotion to duty. Onua only started using those crystals because he felt like he wouldn’t be relevant if he couldn’t work. He’d made that work his duty, and remained so laser-focused on it that he couldn’t back off, couldn’t reinvent himself again when his body started to give.”
“He worked himself to death because it was the only way in which he saw himself adequately serving the Matoran.” A scary thought, that’s for sure.
“That’s right.” Apparently satisfied with the straightness of the blade, Nuparu laid it on the workbench and proceeded to reassemble the handle on the tang. “Now,” he continued in a somewhat stern tone, “I’m sure that, if you’ve been traveling with Kopaka, you’ve heard an awful lot about duty and the Toa Code, and about how he sees himself as serving it.”
“He’s pretty certain that he’s got it all figured out,” I acknowledged. “Of course, he’s living a fantasy, but hey, he can sleep at night.”
“In spite of the contradictions?”
“In spite of anything and anyone,” I continued, anger starting to boil over again. “He just rationalizes it all away, and is marching to his own demise in the process; he just refuses to see it.”
“Well, don’t be too quick to dismiss him,” Nuparu said, to my surprise. “He’s just trying to reconcile his duty and the Toa Code in way that he can stomach. It’s a pity that this world has no place for him where he can do so that would satisfy him, but that’s why he rationalizes away the contradictions.”
“You’re wrong,” I argued. “There is a place for him, a place where he can pursue his duty without destroying himself. The knowledge towers! Gali even pointed it out to him, as did I. He only got angry about it. Angry that he didn’t think of it, maybe?”
“No, he thought of it,” Nuparu countered. “In fact, I bet he’s thought about it a lot, and that he has a legitimate reason for not wanting to work there.”
“His ego,” I explained. “He wants to be alone so he can prove he is better than everyone else; to prove that he can survive what no one else can, and that he can do it without help. It’s lunacy, and it’s getting him killed with no benefit for the Matoran.”
“So his ego isn’t a legitimate reason?” Nuparu asked.
“No, it isn’t,” I argued. “Not when satisfying his ego means letting everyone else down.”
“Okay, so suppose he were to start working in a knowledge tower,” Nuparu posed as he began to wrap a leather grip around the handle of the blade. “Suppose he agreed to start doing his astronomy there; the Matoran would bring him food, water, whatever he needs, and he could spend all of his time charting the stars through the latest equipment. Would that be better?”
“Of course!” I answered. No question about it, right?
“Well, in light of the ‘ego’ you described,” Nuparu continued, “do you think he’d be happy up there?”
“He’d be fulfilling his duty,” I answered, “and he’s always hammering on about how important that is.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Nuparu said as he put the blade down and looked me straight in the eyes. “Would he be happy up there, in those circumstances?”
“Uhm…” I wasn’t sure what he was looking for… or was I? “I guess, maybe not?”
“No, I don’t think he would be,” Nuparu agreed. “It wouldn’t… it wouldn’t fit his idea of a hero, what he strives to be.”
“So, what does this… idyllic hero look like, then?” I wondered.
“Some kind of solitary warrior, I think.” Nuparu picked up the blade again and resumed wrapping the grip around the handle. “I mean, he’s always insisted that he works alone, right?”
“True…” I nodded. “Actually, Gali said that, too. She told me about how Kopaka always wants to do everything himself… even if it doesn’t lead to, you know, the best results.”
“There you go,” Nuparu shrugged. “Did she tell you why he does that?”
“She believed it’s because he wants to prove himself independent from everyone else,” I recalled, “and I saw some things that proved that he wants to do that because he wants to believe he’s better than everyone else… I mean, able to stand alone when everyone else needs a team behind them.”
“Then that’s why he wouldn’t be happy working in a knowledge tower,” Nuparu explained. “Living in a city like that, or even above it… he’d have to rely on others for at least some things, and he sees that as a weakness that he can’t stand. He doesn’t want to be a part of society, to be dependent on other members of it to do their part, which is why he’s going as far away from it as he can.”
“But… he’s wrong,” I argued. “That… interdependence isn’t a weakness. Just look at what the Matoran have accomplished as a society! I mean, that statue out there wasn’t built by one person, was it?”
“No…” Nuparu admitted, “but Kopaka’s not a Matoran, is he?”
“No, he isn’t…” No denying that.
“And neither are the other Toa Nuva,” Nuparu explained. “You see, that’s the difference between us and them. They were never Matoran; they never had a life where they weren’t the exalted heroes that legends speak of, and that’s why they’ve had so much trouble adjusting.”
“But you guys did fine,” I countered. “You’re still serving the Matoran now, aren’t you? And you don’t need to be the hero for it.”
“That’s because I haven’t always been a hero,” Nuparu reiterated himself. He finished tying up the grip; the sword was done, so he looked back to me. “Look, Lis,” he sighed. “Onua, Lewa, Kopaka… all the Toa Nuva have their own idea of what a hero is, what a hero does, and that’s all they know, what they want to be. Only know life at the summit, right?” He pointed at the letter in front of me. “Thing is, the summit kills everyone sooner or later… and we couldn’t get them to come down. Lewa and Onua couldn’t face the descent; they’d already seen from Gali and Pohatu what the bottom looks like. It sucks, but no one was going to change that… and that’s why you’re not going to get Kopaka to stay. No one can; he’d rather die, die as the hero he believes himself to be.”
“But… it undercuts his duty,” I stammered.
“Look around you,” Nuparu replied. “Look at New Atero, at this city here… do these people really need Toa? It’s our duty to help them, but they don’t need our help anymore. That’s why I’ve gone back to doing what I did before I became a Toa, and all the other Toa Mahri did the same. We went back to being Matoran, just… taller ones. If the Matoran need Toa again, we can rise to the challenge, but until then we’ll live out our lives in peace, ‘cause unlike the Toa Nuva, we have lives to return to.”
“I guess you’re still serving society anyways, right?” I pointed out. “I mean, you’re still fulfilling your duty, just… without the need for the spotlight.”
“You could say that…” Nuparu sighed, took up that pensive pose again, and thought for a couple of seconds. Then he looked up: “Lis, you’re still looking for something to do, for a purpose, right?”
“Yeah.”
He looked me straight in the eyes again. “Take my advice: don’t get hung up on framing it with or calling it “Duty” or “Destiny.” Those virtues were for a time of war, when legends were forged and great evil hovered over us like a specter. That time is gone. The time of heroes is gone, which is why I’m not pretending to be one, and neither are the other Toa Mahri. I’m not serving some grand duty, I’m doing a job I enjoy, something that I’m good at. That’s the standard you should be striving for, and if, one day, the need for heroes arises again, you can stand up and be there.”
“But… what if that time never comes?” I questioned.
“Take pride in what you do,” Nuparu answered. “I’m far more satisfied with the work I’ve done here, in my shop and for the mines, than anything I did or accomplished ‘being a hero’ and fighting monsters. Truth is, we barely pulled it off, and lost the best of us in the process. None of us ever felt we were heroes; we just did what we were called to do.”
“Yet the Matoran still call you a hero,” I pointed out, “and me, too.”
“The Matoran need people to believe in…” Nuparu explained, “…people to look up to. We serve that role just fine by being upstanding citizens, and the Toa Code gives us the rules on that. Besides, even if you never got to do something you consider title-worthy, you were ready to, weren’t you?”
“I mean, if it had come to a fight…” I shuddered at the prospect of facing an angry Skakdi tribe, “… I guess we would’ve done what we could.”
“Well, then as far as I’m concerned you’re as deserving of the title as I am.” Nuparu cracked a slight smile before his expression turned gravely serious again. “Really, don’t worry about it… just don’t go out of your way to be some great hero when no one needs one. It didn’t work for the Toa Nuva, and it won’t work for you.”
“But, what about Kopaka, then?” I asked. “He’s still trying… and he’ll die trying before long. I don’t think anyone will even know when it happens.”
“Like I said, you’re not going to be able to change him. Besides, most of the Matoran think he’s dead already anyways…” Nuparu sighed. “Look, I know his words and his actions don’t match, but… learn from him what you can, and then just let him live out his fantasy. He’ll be happy, the Matoran will keep their legend, and you won’t spend years asking yourself how you could have saved him. No one can save him now, no more than anyone could save Onua.”
“I guess you’re right…” I admitted. “It just… sucks, you know?”
“It does,” Nuparu agreed, “but when we can’t save a person from their own flaws, we can at least save the legacy, the ideal they represented. Onua, Kopaka… all the Toa Nuva deserve all the worship they get for what they accomplished; they saved a universe, and made possible the creation of a new world. As fellow Toa, we should make sure that that legacy isn’t tainted by the failings that came to light in that world.”
“I guess that’s it, then…” I resigned. “I should let him go.” From what Nuparu said, it looked like the best option… but I just didn’t like it, something that the Toa of Earth recognized.
“It might help if you parted with him on good terms,” he suggested. “I’m not saying that you’re wrong; you’re absolutely right about his incongruent reasoning, but… you’ll feel a lot better after he’s gone if your last words weren’t in anger.”
“So, I should apologize?” I asked. The idea seemed abhorrent at first. “Apologize for pointing out the truth? He never gave anyone else that courtesy.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure it eats at him too,” Nuparu continued. “He probably buries it like everything else, but I guarantee that somewhere in there he feels pretty bad about the way he’s treated people. That might even be why he’s so fanatically devoted to proving himself to himself… if he isn’t the morally righteous one, maybe at least he can be the strongest, right? Lis, his ego’s going to kill him, and there’s nothing you can do to change that… but don’t let yours do the same to you. You can be the bigger person here, and it will only help you.”
“I guess I never thought of it like that…” I realized that, once again, the older Toa was right. I didn’t like it, but I did owe Kopaka an apology, more for my sake than his. Nuparu turned his attention to screwing the pommel back on the blade, and I looked up at the clock suspended in the shop; it was over halfway from eight to nine in the evening. Nuparu noticed it, too.
“It’s getting late,” he observed, suddenly looking quite tired. “Here, the sword is done;” he handed it to me. “Take it back to him; it’ll give you a way to get the conversation going.”
“Uhm, okay…” The blade was lighter than I thought. “Shouldn’t he pay for it first?”
“He already did,” Nuparu pointed out. “Besides, after all this, I’m about ready to call it a day.”
“Of course,” I nodded. “I’ll probably head back to New Atero… Well, anyways,” I reached forward to shake his hand, “thank you for telling me all this, and for showing me what happened with Onua. I know it was hard.”
“You’re welcome.” He shook it back. “If you learned something from it, it was worth it.”
“It did, and it was,” I assured him as we turned and started heading for the door.
“If you need anything, stop by anytime,” he invited.
“I will, and I’m sure you’ll be seeing Jahlpu soon.”
“I look forward to it.” He smiled in spite of how tired he looked. Entering into the main shop space, we looked around; Kopaka was nowhere to be seen.
“Well, where’d he go?” I thought out loud.
“Outside, probably,” Nuparu suggested. “You should probably go look for him; he won’t be far, and if he does come in here, I’ll tell him to wait outside the doors.”
“Works for me,” I agreed. So we parted ways: he moved to finish closing up the shop, while I turned right and headed for the doors.
“And if you do go back to New Atero, say hello to the other Toa Mahri for me!” he called after me.
“Will do!” I called back as I picked my way between the workbenches and assorted machinery set up in the dim light. Stepping outside, I looked up at a clear, starry sky. The mountain air was chilly, but the view was breathtaking. I closed the doors behind me and stepped back onto Onu-Koro-Nuva’s main street. I didn’t expect Kopaka to have gone into the underground portion, with its round-the-clock hustle and bustle, so I headed in the direction of the hotel and the train station. As it turned out, I was right; I’d made it not fifty feet down the road before I noticed a tall, cloaked figure standing in front of one of the buildings, right across the street from the hotel. Unlike underground Onu-Koro-Nuva, the Matoran on the surface kept a day-night schedule, which meant that the street was empty. As I walked to where Kopaka was standing, I noticed the building he was facing was some kind of souvenir shop, presumably positioned close to the train station to catch weary travelers who’d spent their day in the underground city and were about to board the train home. Kopaka’s attention seemed to be focused on something on display inside, and he showed no sign of noticing me as I approached, not even when I stopped about ten feet away from him.
“Hey, your sword is done…” I said, presenting the weapon. He quickly turned to face me, almost jolting as though I’d surprised him, which I’d scarcely believed possible given how he’d always noticed me even when I used my mask. Recognizing me, he immediately turned to his resting state.
“So it is,” he said solemnly, and gestured for me to approach. I did, and he took the sword. He held it out in front of him for a second or two, testing its weight and balance. Apparently satisfied, he stored it away. Looking past him, I noticed the object he had been so fixated on: a foot-and-a-half tall, bronze model of the statue of Onua in underground Onu-Koro-Nuva, complete with a small lightstone in its raised hand, making it either the world’s most elaborately detailed and expensive ornament, or the world’s most pretentious desk lamp. Having stowed the blade, Kopaka turned back to face the window, looking it over one more time.
“Hey, there’s something… something I have to tell you,” I began, trying with some difficulty to find the right words. “Well, I guess it’s more of an apology…”
“How did it end?” He suddenly asked, cutting me off. He didn’t even turn to face me; he just asked the question.
“Sorry… what?” I was momentarily taken aback. Now he turned back to face me again.
“How did it end?” he repeated himself. “What Nuparu showed you.”
“Oh, that…” now I got it, but what did he want to know about it? “Well, you know how it ends. He died, remember?”
“Show me,” he asked.
“Show you?” I was dumbfounded. “Like, all of it?”
“What Nuparu showed you,” he elaborated. “What did the end look like?”
“So now you’re interested?” I said incredulously. Really, now he was interested?
“Fine then,” he said with a sudden edge to his voice. “Never mind.” He started to turn again.
“No, actually…” I decided. If he wanted to see how Onua died, then I would show him. Hell, maybe it would scare some sense into him; from what he’d told me, Onua was the one other Toa Nuva he still respected up until this point. “You want to see how it ended? I’ll show you how it ended, right here, right now.” He turned back and looked me straight in the eyes. “You ready for this?” I asked, more to see if it would elicit any reaction from him than to get an actual answer; he’d asked, of course he was ready. Alas, no reaction was forthcoming, his expression remaining as stoic as ever. So, I placed my hands on his shoulders, closed my eyes and focused in on his mind instead, calling up the still-fresh memory I’d gotten from Nuparu, intending to hit him with all of it. The condition of the tunnel, the first sight of the Toa Nuva of Earth in his skeletal, famished state, Nuparu pleading with him to come back, Onua’s resignation to his fate, and his final act of defiance… All of it.
It only took a minute or two, but while the connection was up and I was feeding the memory to Kopaka, I also got some signals back; inevitable echos of his reactions to what he saw, what he was experiencing. At that moment when Nuparu first rounded the corner and laid eyes on what remained of Onua, I got shock: deep, awful shock, something Kopaka would have done his best to hide, but he couldn’t block this. Through the conversation, I got disbelief, shock again, more disbelief, hints of anger, and eventually silence… silence punctuated by a sad gloom. This was Kopaka accepting what had shocked him so, Onua’s final scene… when we got to the part where Nuparu was racing against the collapsing tunnel to get out, which should’ve gotten his adrenaline pumping, I instead got that same sadness. Not even an extra heartbeat; after that last glimpse back, that image of Onua leaning back against the wall, awaiting the imminent collapse, Kopaka had tuned out. I opened my eyes; my hands had dropped to my sides and were shaking a little, but I quickly reasserted myself. Kopaka’d turned away again, his eyes once again fixed on that statue that crowned the display behind the window.
“That’s it,” I said. I got no response from Kopaka, but his expression, for once, spoke volumes. I could best describe it as an empty sadness, like I’d shattered something in him, his view of Onua perhaps, the one Toa Nuva he’d had good things left to say about. I didn’t focus in on his mind again, but even with what passive signals I got, I could tell all manner of thoughts were racing through his head… somehow, that felt quite satisfying to me. “Hey, that was it,” I said, reaching up and shaking his shoulder to try and get him out of this… whatever trance this was. I got no response again; he’d tuned me out completely. “So, look,” I continued, “I know you can hear me, and I do have one thing left to say before I go, or before you go, I guess…” I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts again, then noticed that his expression had changed to a frown, a scowl, a defiant expression of some kind. Unsure of what to make of it, I tried to get his attention again: “Hey… look, I’m sorry about, you know… what I said back there…” Suddenly, he turned and started to walk away. “Hey, wait!” I followed. “Where are you going!?” Again, he ignored me completely, but he kept up a very quick pace. He marched into the train station, made his way up to the ticket booth, slammed a bunch of widgets down on the counter in one go, and pointed resolutely at the board listing various destinations. The late-night operator quickly offered him a ticket, which he took, after which he proceeded up the stairs leading onto bridge to the passenger platform, not even bothering to wait for change to be counted.
“Hey!” I called after him, but it was like I didn’t exist as far as he was concerned, so I turned to the operator instead. “Hey, wherever he’s going… I need a ticket too,” I told her. The operator, a young Ce-Matoran, of all things, quickly grabbed another ticket and just handed it to me.
“This’ll cover it,” she said, gesturing at the pile of widgets on her desk and with a noticeable tremble in her voice; Kopaka’s display had left an impression.
“Oh… okay.” I wasn’t going to question that; I took the ticket and started for the walkway.
“The train’ll leave in less than a minute, ma’m!” she called after me.
“Thanks!” I called back as I sped up, sprinting up the stairs and across the walkway to the platform where the train was parked, ready and waiting. I boarded the closest car mere seconds before the doors closed and the train got rolling. Looking left and right, I didn’t see a sign of Kopaka, but I wasn’t going to let him get away, not again.
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#####author’s note: after the last few days, I’ve come to the conclusion that a month-long break and a long weekend do amazing things for one’s productivity. Copious caffeine consumption helped, too… Anyways, this chapter processes the inevitable fallout of the last one, but doesn’t slow things down all that much yet. I really enjoyed writing the dialogue between Nuparu and Lis, tragic as the lines often were, but I figured Nuparu would be the one best positioned, and with the best experience, to offer Lis the wisdom that gets dispensed in this chapter. As for what Lis’ll do with it… we’ll see.
I’ll post more chapters as I finish them. As always, post any questions, comments, and/or observations below. Enjoy!
