Take Up the Cross – Chapter 108: Non-Repetition of Stellar Events

(Fake halls! Fake statues! Just as long as the Castillo’s, though!)

 

Around a curving turn, Adris’ shoots from the ground with eyes that glint with deep blood thirst guiding his path. Legs flip forward to angle his escape!

 

(JUST AS LONG!)

 

A statue becomes a springboard. The fleeing rabbit’s spirit seeks to steal any distance possible. Mansions without any human touches, such as wonderful places to hide in plain sight while engaging in erotic pursuits, are the worst places for a street rat to survive in.

The unliving head of the manse servant’s statue behind Adris cracks before shearing clean off. A swordmaiden’s amplified, apish strength reduces her attempted swing instead to disaster, sending her twirling down the wrong hall with a rolling head tumbling after.

 

(Sloppy! Did I shake you up too much!?)

 

A wonderful thought that is, though Adris can’t believe such a farce.

What might dash the mentalities of others was like a rotten pear crashing against this woman’s impregnable fortress. Though not particularly proactive, Serras’ mind is a steel trap which triggers only to chomp out at prey.

 

Adris is the venison to be snapped by the leg.

 

 

 

Scampering down endless gray hallways that burn with false candles everywhere, he considers his options…

 

(What options!? No one can beat her! Even if they could, they won’t bother to try!)

 

No one has pursued.

If they have, they cannot keep up with a black rat and shining dark alleycat that rip through similar passages. Falke’s shock, how he cursed Adris’ existence, was genuine by the boy’s measure.

 

(He never promised to aid me, though.)

 

Only the endless shrieking of gateways opening reveals the cunning fox’s solution.

Down every turn and side hall, this labyrinth of vexing transporters that defy Adris’ need for set destinations instead open to allow free passage. To his amazement, what resemble simply adjoining spaces instead of distant ones are on the other side!

 

(If you want her gone, then guide me! Drop servants from the walls with signs!)

 

Though the garden is visible through the frosty great windows to his left, Adris instead searches for anywhere to cage a creature that can rip through walls with a dragon made of explosive aura.

 

A mad quest like this isn’t his forte.

There should be a plan, after all.

 

 

 

(I have no plan.)

 

 

 

Without a plan, this game of tiles is stacked to collapse on him.

Clobbering Serras in the back of the head, while absolutely the most engaging and rewarding act Adris has ever succeeded in carrying out, also doomed any alternate future.

 

He’d anticipated having time after awakening.

 

A nightmare he can’t remember demanded he discover what transpired before acting.

That he meet friends and comrades, extracting the sweet milk called information from them before gifting them his own…

 

(No, no, no, nothing erotic. Stop thinking.)

 

 

 

He nearly stumbles in his flight, hands to his head and squeezing to solidify the lustful mush it’s become. A hardening cock wilts when his back turns icy again.

A pointless look over his shoulder sends him blitzing forward faster despite the spreading pain.

 

 

 

Black eyes were doorways to lethal thoughts.

Though no aura alloy flashes its thirst for his head, the implacable female tiger loping after him brings a thrilling, primal response all the same.

 

 

 

(Why the fuck is Serras here!?)

 

 

 

Even more chilling is his own impossible stupidity in savaging this monstrosity.

In the grand game of victories between these two, one bloody hash mark can only add a second with a fresh batch from Adris.

 

(I should’ve let them fight…! If that yammering kobold were Serras’ target, maybe she could’ve—!?)

 

 

 

But, an aching heart is spiked by that cruel, selfish logic.

If she’d discovered everything Adris has done…

 

What he longs to do, then…!

 

 

 

(Kol would’ve died.)

 

 

 

Mercy is something soft Zennians show each other, choosing sexual depravity over murder. It’s a silent, creeping cancer that tastes so sweet. It replaces Adris’ wiser thoughts, offering “mercy” in place of “absoluteness” if he can wet his dick.

 

(I’ve been affected without considering the loss of objectivity!)

 

He’s been encouraged to restrain his venom, to not harm despite the customary sins of others. Rape, though heinous, is simply an appetizer to those of Xin. A diversion at the expense of the weak before settling into the dish of slit throats.

 

Even if Adris can come to afford to gift it now, he fundamentally rejects mercy…

 

(And so does Serras, which is why I can only choose who she fixates on!)

 

While Serras possesses an imagination that far exceeds Adris’ own, like a steel trap it will spring only once. So that she will never grasp his sins until after he makes them irrelevant, a boy’s gut growls with the fear of her teeth ripping at his entrails.

 

 

 

Through a grand gateway that reads “A place that remains useless, for the joining of two requires the addition of another”, Adris bursts into aisle between long, V-aligned pews in many rows.

Just as good as steps, he skips along the tops of them while aiming ever higher.

 

(Run. Just run. Keep running forever.)

 

 

 

You can’t defeat a god.

Or a goddess.

Already attempting it once with better odds, Adris has no thirst now for a second try.

 

The need to kill Serras burns unquenched, with the red haze creeping around the edge of his sight roaring out to make it its own cause, too.

Foreign, yet becoming familiar, this thirst of a raging beast leaves his hands slick at the worst time.

 

(But be quiet, because we’re not fighting her!)

 

Up a column he runs after touching upon it, defying gravity before flipping through the air to wrap around a thick orange and green banner.

Too far up from the ground for even Serras to easily leap without first planning, Adris whips about and scurries toward the ceiling.

 

Toward the glorious skylights in the roof that are reachable up high!

 

(Let’s see you—!)

 

 

 

A hand abandons hope, reaching instead to a hated purple sash.

Left wrapped up with the cross, only instinct and the swirling of aura below him compels Adris to wrap his legs around the banner and tie the sash around the cross in the same motion. Hanging upside down dozens of feet above the hard firmament as a common aura manipulation weaves doom, the burning in Adris’ gut worsens with its severe presence.

 

(Ah… She doesn’t need to jump, of course!)

 

 

 

A screaming blade emission slices through the room, leaving a vacuum wake snapping.

 

Adris’ cross flies out, becoming a wildly tossed grapple in his free fall away from a fluttering banner. His body’s subtle energies resonate with this gambit, aiding its effortless hooking around a hanging candelabra as he swings.

 

The world spins end-over-end with Adris’ deathly launch toward… onto, at… at…!?

 

 

 

Unforgiving stone steals his breath with the impact. A mad scramble for hand holds is saved only by sure feet with firm traction. Bleeding all over himself hones his concentration, leaving no mind for details as to what he clings to.

If he’s cornered, the fancy chase ends like before.

He’ll paint gray stone a brilliant rust red.

 

Only outside, where he can flee to Petripolis and its millions of hiding places can he…!

 

 

 

“Adris!”

 

 

 

Deft hands cling to a chiseled figure raised from the wall’s flat surfaces.

Angled ever so slightly inward, the sloping walls of this chapel Adris clings to, denoted by the altar and raised floor below, can only be scaled by the adrenaline-fueled skill sheer terror brings.

Ripped from his flight by Serras’ sharp scream, the boy turned mountain climber is a little proud of himself. Up a ladder called an old priest’s pock-marked, stone face is where he’s still making headway vertically.

 

Unfortunately, the aura warrior inexorably creeping closer is capable of whittling down mountains.

 

 

 

(Do it. End this.)

 

 

 

Adris is plainly a future corpse.

Even if Serras oddly hesitates, flinching when Adris examines her capabilities with a deeper probing, it will take only a moment to free this section of perch and crush a boy under the rubble.

Not even the cross can deflect all of the unexplainable reserves of aura she first showcased with his unceremonious slaughter.

 

No figure, or figures as Adris notices that they have their backs turned to him standing between the pews, will come alive to aid him in his time of need.

 

(Nobody follows me. Abandoned? Very well, it’s fine.)

 

 

 

This sin is his alone, the sin of knowing Serras and dying at her hand, then reviving without considering how to defeat her if the one in a billion chance of her returning should prove inescapably destined to occur.

His mistake shouldn’t to those he—

To… others.

 

(It’s fine. I won’t let them…! She will die with—!)

 

 

 

“Who… who is pressing you, Adris?”

 

Timid as a dove and with a coo nearly as quiet, Serras’ usually unreadable face tightens with… concern? Though dark and mysterious as ever, like a sunless pond in a deep ravine, her call doesn’t bring more horror, but instead…?

 

(“Pressing”? You think me controlled!?)

 

Such a strange question revives nearly useless knowledge of aura techniques which could encompass an Inner Expanse and then tear through to its core. To surrender this strategic place within one’s soul, the afflicted would become simple…

 

(You think I’m addled!? Are you scared to try and hurt me!?)

 

 

 

Such a realization is euphoric.

 

(Who has forgotten what happened!? This woman? How bizarre…)

 

It affords him many opportunities, even as he rejects most of them.

Talking her out of this…?

 

“… Ahahaha!”

“A-Adris…?”

 

Laughter unnerves her, but the audacity of this unnerves Adris even more!

 

A boy laughing his head off proves stronger than any weapon against the Serras leaning away in total confusion.

 

“You think I’m mad? Being used as a puppet, perhaps?” Adris’ muscles lose all tension, nearly dropping him from the wall to his doom. “No, no, no, no, no! We can’t have any misunderstandings between us, Serras!”

With something approaching mirth, Adris chuckles as he watches the woman falter another cautious step.

“Before the end, either way, I want you to understand perfectly…”

 

Rather than simply a murderer pursuing him…

 

 

 

(Why do you seem as innocent as a newborn kitten!?)

 

 

 

Within a two-and-a-half story chapel barely wider than where his previous life ended, Adris finds he’s trapped to a wall again by the same existential crisis.

 

Gone is the certainty of death that the Emperor’s Tomb foretold, though, replaced instead by an unfulfilled longing. Spectators wait for the arrival of groom and bride who’ve yet to show, refusing to animate to watch a hustler greet his butcher. A chase which turns inauthentic explains why it hasn’t been lethal.

 

(Amnesia?)

 

Something about her seems hazy, prompting this assessment but also rejecting it.

 

(No, incongruities?)

 

With such immediate need, Adris’ analytical proclivities go wild.

 

Serras wears the same blue caftan he gifted her, instead of the white ritual clothes she last wore in his memories. Though Adris was sent to Zennia with only what he carried on his back or through his gut, Serras seemingly came with more being stolen up by the Emperor’s tantrum.

 

(Not only items, but presence?)

 

Sharp features are too quiet, too subdued!

Capable of drawing eyes by simply existing, the minutest emotions Serras betrays should be the sole focus of Adris’ inner sight. For she is like the dragon she calls forth when roused.

 

But the Serras of now, with a focus that seems shallow and a posture that can only be called lacking in impression, is more like a half-remembered fever dream.

 

(You should be killing me! I won’t allow hesitation.)

 

 

 

Even if Fatso’s repugnant orders scream in Adris’ head to “SUBVERT HER, MAKE HER YOUR SWORD AGAIN”, a screaming animal king chews through that tubby logic.

Any thought that brings sweat to Adris’ brow with wanting to “understand” is rejected outright, cutting through the gloomy paralysis creeping in!

 

Rage elates and informs.

It punctuates his every movement and the way he sucks on his teeth in frustration.

 

It’s the only thing keeping him awake and from trying to surrender his body, or rape hers.

 

 

 

“What possible reception were you expecting?

A hug and a kiss, beauty of my dreams?”

 

A flippant question turns her cheek as if slapped.

Mouth open in shock, the idea of breathing finally flits through her pea-brained skull.

 

“… I… I was… searching for you.”

Finally taking in the sights herself, Serras’ certainty fades further as she runs her fingers over a pew’s back made of pseudoprósōpon, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

 

(You feel its falseness, too, do you?)

 

“An unknown fortress with [ceramic soldiers]. But, aura-deaf southern barbarians within? Mystical gateways that throw us afar? Flying, winged women with talons and strange water techniques…?”

 

(Babbling is all you’re doing, though. Pay attention, foolish “partner”.)

 

Like always, her inspection is only scratching the surface.

“Monsters spoke, like people…? They were… savaging one another?” Less timid after Adris ceases to flee, Serras walks toward him with little fear of the boy, but plenty for their location. “Know this place, Adris? Who is… ‘the Maker’?”

 

(“Maker”? Stop babbling… show me your move!)

 

This question is the queerest, for she speaks the title with great difficulty. Almost on the tip of her tongue, the answer escapes at the last second.

“No, irrelevant. Everything else, isn’t important. Escape is, where do we go?”

 

(Escape…?)

 

As if delivering her usual report to an esteemed partner of decades, Serras’ body language is showcasing confusion that stems from one single act.

Her free hand creeps up to her head, wincing as it settles on the back.

The subtle gestures which question in their private sign language are completely ignored.

 

Adris will not respond to ingrained triggers.

 

“No… If not pressed… why… did you…?” Doe-eyed as she begs with a whisper, this pointless assault did strike in one way, tumbling her whole world view off the edge and into the great abyss between floating islands.

“Hit me… when I stood with…?”

 

 

 

“If Adris isn’t being controlled, then what will she think is his reason”, this is a question that excites him.

Even if his brain is almost wholly given to rage, the thought of her being in pain is also…!

 

(BECAUSE YOU DESERVED THAT AND SO MUCH MORE.)

 

 

 

Discomfort on her face draws an open smile on his.

“Just getting into the spirit of this new world, are you, Serras!? My, no problem. It’s easy for a veteran of it like myself to explain.”

 

Rather than continue to hang from the wall, the change in mood prompts a new stage. The altar is suitable, so he lets go to descend to it like a conquering cliff-warrior.

If he can’t fish out power to conquer her with, then he must choose words, that which she despises most of all, to sniff out a weakness to hang her with.

 

(I need you to hate me again, too, or it won’t feel right to bash your skull in.)

 

“Red… eyes…?”

Almost a moan, Serras’ confusion escalates when Adris’ crumbling spirit finds a new pillar to back against.

 

 

 

If a trickster of Xin would surrender immediately to inevitable oblivion again like the chump he was, then a false god of Zennia, an unknowable entity that has stood before worse creatures than this one and grasped the strength to live,

 

 

 

What would he do?

(WHAT SHOULD I DO?)

“Asking me for explanations? How can I not provide one, then?”

 

 

 

That handsome, implacable creature of Beyond would swing his cross arm wide, brandishing it proudly to draw her eyes to its unnerving tactical possibilities.

Despite the shortness of his body, he’d use the height of the altar to lean forward onto his knee while leering down. Absolute dominance is asserted by impression, using this woman’s insecurity against herself!

 

To maximize the illusory disparity between them in order to refuse the lust that compels him to hop down and offer his body, he will not, cannot, dare to give himself to a woman that used to soothe his heart and devour his appetites with her own…

 

Instead, he must destroy her utterly.

 

 

 

“This place is what lies at the end of the river whose course you chose to wash me down, Serras. New rules, new gods, new fated ends, if you’re not careful. Everything here is just as dangerous, or even more so than on Xin, if you count myself as one…”

Cryptic and menacing, a familiar voice of a boyish Adris brings conflicting emotions to a murderess who has too many complexities to take in.

Even if he possesses none of the authority he imbibes in his fantasies…!

 

(I will crush you.)

 

 

 

“It is a new world, Serras! A difficult one, to be sure, but one free of lingering stains, of terrible troubles, like the one lingering below me.”

A naked display of his contempt brings her hand grasping to her throat as she swallows, so shocked by…!

 

(GET OUT OF MY LIFE.)

 

Longing promotes weakness, his spine frail and his muscles weak when he insults someone he loved. Old habits demand he take up his place at her back, even as the rage reviles this weakness.

More than just a charade, the renewed hatred joins with his grandiose position birthed by need and the anger of an unknown tyrant to wrap him in comforting coldness.

They all merge to oppose one idea his heart screams for him to accept.

 

 

 

(No, no forgiveness. No mercy. “Kill or Be Killed”, that was the river’s name you drowned me in.)

 

It will be where she washes down, now.

 

 

 

At least, it should be…

 

Into the loop of her belt a mysterious sword is thrust.

Free hands reach up instead of carving out to bisect him.

 

“… It’s okay, Adris. You’re not… alone, now.” Rather than impressing her or suggesting some unnatural new self who has cast her aside, a show only produces genuine concern tinged by the corruption called loathing.

 

(Don’t pretend you didn’t understand Kol’s intent!)

 

“Come down, we’ll escape, okay?”

Save for the day that she unleashed all of her concealed verbal knives upon him, she keeps ever concise while speaking.

 

(Do you think this is some joke?)

 

A slight smile, the fake kind she will give to placate him when words grow even the least bit terse, is what she stabs him with, too. As if those emotions she was concealing, festering with for who-knows-how-many years were never spoken days past, this bitch…!

 

“Wherever this is, doesn’t matter. A hiding spot first, Adris, find one.”

 

(DON’T YOU DARE SHOW CONCERN…)

 

Brushing off his red-hot feelings, they just roll off as she thinks to use him to save her skin, it seems.

Like him, she seeks escape.

But, unlike him, she, the gall of this creature, such…

 

“Then, tell me what hap—”

 

 

 

(DON’T PRETEND YOU LOVE ME!)

 

 

 

A cutting cross hurtles toward her face.

 

Obsidian has a way of waking others up when words fail to, for the woman who had turned so placid in guise gains wide eyes of fright

 

The sword that screams back out clashes with black, sending flames dancing off to burn upon the chapel floor like white-hot phosphorus. The expanding wave of two diametrically opposed concepts replicates the struggle against a purple priestess’ deathly grip when their colors flare!

 

A manse made of alchemical putty groans when exposed to the sprays of shadows that escape from a wounded cross and the rainbow lightning that arcs from the equally damaged surface of a treasured sword to ground into muck.

The floor and pews and figures and walls sag when unknowable energies course through the open chapel. Solid forms squirm and deform as madness spreads without cessation, refusing to regain their prior shapes and instead seeking new ones!

 

(They can’t clash again!)

 

As the emblem of a false god boomerangs back to be coolly caught by its owner, that boy tilts his head and clicks his tongue.

A thumb rubs across the cross’ once immaculate surface. Such a deep groove firms his despise of a female remnant of his past, narrowing his eyes with suspicion while he whispers the truth she needs to recall before dying.

“I’m just trying to fix your brain, Serras, since it seems you forgot something important.”

Pointing to his belly with the cross, Adris sneers, feeling lines forming on such a youthful face he now wears.

“Immediately after discovering ultimate power, one that I was going to give to the only… woman I’ve ever trusted:

 

You killed me, you stupid bitch.”

 

 

 

“Killed…

… you?”

Hers isn’t the response of a killer’s, at first, Adris gives her that much as she pretends not to remember.

“I… did…?”

 

Abusive language pales skin to corpse white, leaving the shocking revelation so disgusting that she fends it off with a swordpoint toward him. When confronting the unknown, violence is always her favorite mindless tool, while Adris has so many more useful ones.

Though her eyes quake in surprise, with minute twists of her head to refuse the blame…

 

 

 

A conspiratorial wind sweeping up behind Adris billows out his sleeves, washing over the chapel and howling through the halls to uplift a woman who suddenly began staring down.

Her hair regains the luster that was missing from it earlier when it flaps in the gale, finally shining anew.

 

 

 

Shadows play at the edge of Adris’ sight.

These arrogant intruders neither help nor harm him, only gnawing ever more at his sanity.

Crawling up the sides and nipping at the gray matter which has curdled with their explosive clash, the whispers that question the truth or falseness of this situation seem to echo the emotional turbulence playing out within Serras’ thoughts.

 

Though her sword wobbles with one hand spasming…

 

 

 

“… You… threw the spear, first.”

 

Her other hand clamps down on an unsteady wrist. The blade point which fended against an impossible claim sings with suddenly lethal intent.

 

“I… returned… it!”

 

That sharpness that always sends Adris’ hairs straight.

Even with the illusion of space between them, this murderess regaining depth to her gaze compels him to flee again. Murky pools filled by equal hate and a strange despair are no longer shallow.

 

(You’re looking… pretty amazing now, Serras!)

 

Adris questions his own sanity in reviving such strong motivators in a mass murderer.

Swiftly, he’s not sure…

 

 

 

(No, suffer.)

 

This river’s course does not change, not even if he dies.

 

 

 

“Oh, sorry, I misunderstood~!” Clapping his hands, Adris bows contritely with the proper grin of a merchant. “I get it, it was a joke!? Or were you just in the mood? You looked at me while thinking, ‘ah, his back is so open, just too sexy…”

Mimicking a lovestruck woman’s voice, Adris does a catty wave at the end.

“‘I know~! I’ll show him how hot I am for his bo~dy by putting my fucking sword through it?’…!

Was that it, then?”

“That was… a… mistake.”

Though her response is low and without emotion, Adris’ heart wrenches more by how there’s also little shame. Unable to even look him in the eyes while recalling the attempted assassination, as if she’s a girl being confronted with a simple childish mistake, she stares at the ground rather than facing up.

But, she also doesn’t apologize.

 

“Yes, the worst kind of mistake, Serras: you missed.”

 

(Show me pain. If not shame, then anything to prove that I’m striking true!)

 

“Oh, just another simple failure from an uncomplicated woman, suddenly also unable to do the only thing you’re good at.” Despite the disparity, Adris somehow has this titan impotently squeezing her blade’s hilt hard enough to bend the alloy.

Condescension brings her head lifting finally, teeth wonderfully grinding!

 

(I suffered through all of this… these trashy feelings! I’m not going to be the only fucking idiot who does! LET ME SEE YOU HURT!)

 

“I am… ‘simple’, am I? That…” Though her voice shakes in anger, she chokes on it with rage simply flowing out deep into the earth through her feet. “That… is true. Some of us, lived in muddy dirt between flower fields, rather than between shelves of scrolls.”

As if these words require so much vitality to speak quickly, Serras regains some by lowering her sword. “‘Uncomplicated’? Okay, I will… accept that. The opposite of simple, is complex, right?”

As if truly needing confirmation, Serras nods when Adris’ face betrays a teacher’s unconscious approval.

“The only complex person I have ever met… was you, Adris.”

“Flattery gets you nothing.” It’s his turn to abuse the cross in his grip, for Adris feels mighty heated at being called “complex”. “We both know how, and why, I am what I am.”

Rather than a compliment, this word seems to describe him too well for his tastes.

 

“No… only some things I know… never… all.”

She finally opens her eyes to face him.

As if clearing her soul of some blockage, a placid expression like a mask breaks.

 

Revulsion matching his own gives ugly lines to her beautiful disguise.

A trembling soul ignites!

 

 

 

“You have many ‘truths’, Adris, but I only ever clutched and understood two: ‘Adris will take care of me’ and ‘there is —life— [to cut] and there is —death— [to be cut]’.”

 

 

 

(Why do you choose to live by the ‘wisdom’ of your enslavers, even now!?)

 

“What!? I told you… I told you years ago! That’s only the Xin’Reh’s idiotic view of [life] and [death]!”

Ignoring the first “truth”, the second shows how little Serras has listened to him! It leaves him craning in agony, trying to understand how she can possibly still miss how broad the world actually is in comparison to her limited view of their imprisonment.

“Before the Emperor, the people of the earth and dirt had different words for ‘life’ and ‘death’! They weren’t even strictly antonyms, but parts in a great cycle! Do you not remember!?”

Nodding her head once, Serras coolly whispers her answer.

“Patiently, with a smile like always, you told me. But never once… you never showed me this truth.”

“… Huh!? The fuck!?”

Down from the altar he jumps, leaning in like a clustered city gangster as he snarls.

“Words, how to read and write, I taught you this! Temples! Vistas! Shrines, poets, and scholars, I took you to see them all! The Hanging Tower of Vinzhe, remember us climbing its side together to see if the legend of a portal at the top was true!?”

“I recall. It was… exciting, even if the top was not.”

“Right!? I took you everywhere to expose you to more, like I had seen! To show you how vast this freedom we had was! But you never… you never bothered to even enjoy…!?”

 

(Even if I hate those who worship dead dust and moldy scrolls, I always valued ideas!)

 

Besides the cities, tea shops, and sites of power across Xin, Adris had offered an escape to the impossibly vast sky outside of high walls and never-opening gates.

To every floating island they’d traveled, seeing so many strange places together:

Forests that glittered when the torch-like sun turned away its gaze; mountains that held geodes and formations of rock that turn transparent when exposed to aura; and the Sea of Stars, where both had almost drowned when a great sparkling fish had risen to capsize them.

 

(We’ve been everywhere! I have… I had taken you…?)

 

Adris’ thinking draws a blank, suddenly, while trying to remember a recent exposure.

The last place they went together, solely for pure… pleasure, where was…?

 

“When was the last time you bothered to share your thoughts? To even try to explain, Adris?”

An edge creeps back into her candor, the selfish girl poking back above the placid surface!

“Explain what!? The last place I took you to demonstrate an idea, it was…? Ah, but, you barely spoke a word, so—!”

 

 

 

“So, you abandoned me.

And went to enjoy its secrets by yourself.”

 

(Ah?)

 

The shattered ruins of eternal shadows at the edge of the great continent, floating nearest to the Imperial Court. That had been the place.

It was there that Adris had resolved his convictions regarding the Emperor’s architecture and its purposeful design…

 

Now that he thinks about it, he’d been talking out loud about its wonders, but it’d been to…

 

(Myself…)

 

“… I… I would’ve—?”

“Bothered to try to teach the ‘simple girl’ another ‘life lesson’?”

Now it’s his turn to falter, hands lifted defensively, but unable to identify the threat.

“… Don’t bullshit me! As if you’re the only one I’ve—!”

“Given up on?”

Tired eyes bat with this question.

As if she’s known the whole time what he was going to say.

 

As if she has heard it before, but she hasn’t.

Serras just knows Adris well enough to anticipate the justifications.

 

(You… never… bothered to try to see things my way, though? So I stopped…)

 

 

 

Adris suddenly finds himself against the altar, the surprise cutting through the carnage in his soul.

The Serras before him seems vibrant and inviting, a lot more…

 

(SHIT! If you wanted to voice frustrations—!)

“If you wanted to not be left out, then why not try to follow any of my thoughts, explore what I’m talking about, instead of only being catty about them!?”

 

Shaking his hand at her, anger reignites with the red around his sight leaching in further!

It must take over more of him, lest his body drift into hedonistic danger.

 

“Don’t play victim! I, unlike you, recall that for years, years, every thought I spoke was something to ignore or brush off!? Or, worse, to think it only a game I’m playing on you and everyone else, and insulting me about how ‘dee~eeep’ it sounds!?”

 

(What is the point of sharing a life with a person you can never speak to!? To share the secrets of existence with, to have them show even the remotest interest in!?)

 

“I’m not just a hustler, Serras! I’m a human, too!” Hand to his vest, he rips at it to allow the heated escape of everything unbottling. Along with his belly, his heart is ripping, too. “It wasn’t all some vendetta! Even I had… minutes, hours, and days of… well, clarity from my… ‘causes’!? I shared… hopes with you, ideas and dreams and thoughts, but you… didn’t even—!?”

“Like you said… I am ‘simple’.” Sight shifts right as the woman loses her edge in the argument. “Your world is too big, your words too ‘complicated’.”

One feminine hand opens, showing the calloused hands of a warrior.

“Your hands are smooth. Trinkets, ideas, ‘causes’, you… craft things. My hands… mine are…?”

 

(The hands of a butcher?)

“A killer’s hands?”

 

Half jest and half venom, this question brings a choke from his own murderer.

Scared, she…

 

“I!?

I don’t…!

… I… I didn’t want to be…!”

 

Almost like it’s red hot, the girl… no, woman threatens to cast away her precious sword. A treasure she rescued from a forest grave by her own hand, only it is beside her when she sleeps other than—!

 

“Sorry. Shut up.”

“Ugh…! You, Adris, I hate how con—!”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I don’t want to see you cry again, so shut the fuck up.”

 

For her to be defeated by ancient, destructive memories isn’t right.

This isn’t his path to satisfaction.

 

(I never had to go through it, as I was already awakened.)

 

 

 

Take children from impoverished villages.

Drag their parents with them to a flat area of dirt for them to face each other in.

Grant armaments to all and deliver an ultimatum.

 

“When there are no children standing, you will not be executed.”

 

This was a story only spoken once in the deepest depths of Serras’ drunken mania, and it left a stain upon their relationship that never vanished. A look of horror resurfacing while speaking with Adris about random topics. The same look of betrayal even when he would wrestle her to the ground in a loving embrace, always mysterious in what sets it off.

Always pained, looking at something she’s losing…?

 

(Fatso called it a method with “surprising efficacy”.)

 

From the results of her “testing”, Serras was thrust into the meat grinder aura cultivation school that Jilahn and his evil partner ran, bringing her to…

 

 

 

“… Nothing I have ever done, other than… kill, has ever achieved a single goal.”

 

Staring at her hand, Serras firmly recloses it around her sword.

“Even after finding… a reason to live by your side, to grow and get stronger, nothing changed, did it?”

“No, no, think about what we’ve done!” Almost running toward her, Adris skids to a halt while screaming. “The people we’ve brought low!? The selfish, horrific crimes you have personally avenged!”

Defying his own anger, Adris reaches out with an empathic lifeline.

“… It wasn’t just selfishness or some satisfaction I alone felt! You told me to make my dream real, to do more! Especially, after…!”

 

(On the rooftop, you were furious that I had stolen your own vengeance!)

 

A deeply troubling memory seemingly rides the renewed wind.

Gales that leave turbulence of air and emotion send Serras’ eyes back to Adris.

Filling with more… humanity.

 

“After we lost ‘home’? Right, right. I did say that… didn’t I?”

Memories replay for Serras, too, prompting a bleak smile without any falsity or misdirection.

 

(Again… you…)

 

“Ah, it was my fault, too. Adris… you were the only one who… wanted me.” How she can speak such a lie sends Adris into a fit.

 

(Other… men who—!)

“… No. There were—!”

 

Firm, unyielding, Serras’ stiff palm cuts wide, silencing Adris.

 

“Understand: there were no others. Adris… only you wanted me for both my body and my blade. Being leered at by men, proving better than them and having the survivors desire me…” As if to relive that memory, Serras lifts her chin and strikes the effortless pose of a Xin’Reh warlord.

A sword ill-trained for beauty still swims with it as she swings into the flow of an aura form. “Because they wanted me, you…” Still dancing, she nears. His coldness and rage fights against the mesmerizing display.

 

“You wanted me so much more!”

 

(That was… because I was…)

 

“The tea-shop lady called it ‘beautiful jealousy’, that even ugly men can look attractive when they decide to make you theirs!? Oh, hahaha, it was a wonderful idea…!” An enrapturing form ends with her childish laughter, waking Adris from his mirth.

 

 

 

And sending him leaping back upon the altar’s top, to stare while huffing.

For Serras had started forward with amazing speed, stopping only when he bolted before his mind told him to.

As sweat pours down his cheeks… he’s reminded of hazards.

 

“The men wanted a woman to… ah, spread wide and… please them.” At his retreat, her hand closes and pulls away. “Jilahn and the Xin’Reh wanted a sword to cleave their foes, a weapon that they could cling to. Only you wanted… both, and more…”

“I wanted everything!”

An admission that he hisses brings a queer smile to her face, like a suddenly lovestruck girl when she turns her face from him.

“… That’s nice.”

 

(It was, but… not now!)

 

“But then, the grand plans that you would explain to the point of boring me… stopped being explained. The places we once went to, and sights you eagerly pointed out, that also sadly bored me…?”

Soullessly she slowly spins, dragging her blade and cutting grooves into the poor ground.

“I noticed that… the more I enjoyed my small part in your plots, the less—?”

“More than just enjoyed, you—!”

 

The air sings when her blade thrusts up.

One hand stabs it toward Adris’ face with a rage sufficient to cut skin by itself, while the other strokes her own cheek, removing unseen grime.

“I never… wanted to kill. But once I… did, and once you convinced me to let it become what I should do to survive, maybe I did finally learn, that I…?”

A gentle smile curls up.

Even if her eyes are shaking with self-hate, a secret passion is no longer firmly denied.

“‘Killing those who deserve it’ and ‘being with a man who appreciates my place in his world’, that was all I needed! It didn’t matter if the rest was boring, because that’s all I felt I needed…”

“It mattered to me! You lost more and more of yourself—!”

“My choice, Adris.”

 

A curt refusal silences him, leaves him straining.

 

(I stopped including you because it hurt too much to try to!)

 

They had never agreed on how to live.

Only to be together.

 

Adris had never felt comfortable trying to instruct Serras, only to try and show things, but…!

Once it seemed hopeless, maybe he also accepted that it was…?

 

(It hurts…!)

 

“Right, for you it wasn’t really justice, either. So boring, to me, to care about anything else.”

“… Serras!?”

Mysteriously, her self-hatred grows as she finds even more happiness to share. Her proud sword mockingly rises in a lazy cadre salute.

“‘I’m tired of this world, let’s change it.’ Such a childish…!

No, ‘simple’ dream, but it woke me up and made me feel good! Clinging to you on a cold roof while watching them die like they did, it felt…!”

Wind whistles as she chops at nothing.

Putting all her emotions into this swing, to Adris it feels both immaculate and vulgar, all at once.

“But you didn’t want to just hurt others, what you really wanted was to ‘teach’ them! So weird to me! ‘See why I am right’, that ended up being your ‘justice’, I couldn’t accept that!?”

Three swings trisects an imagined foe, spilling the lifeblood that Serras’ sword sings for.

“WHY!? I became your ‘sword’ in my heart, so why did teaching others matter!? I had a reason to live, finally! And, after a reason…!”

“Serras…?”

Aura clinging to her in her flurry of slashes suddenly releases, buffeting Adris harshly as the ringing cross swears its enticements away!

Sweat on her brow glistens as she sighs.

“I had a man who would hold me. I never slept alone, because the smell… to you wasn’t… Even though I was always alone, because you had your own ‘world’ that you locked yourself in, away from me and always plotting more, it was enough that you…

… that you…”

Almost blushing, decades couldn’t steal the last of her innocence toward this subject.

“… That you… gave yourself to me? Came… looking for me, despite me saying… ‘no’ a lot, for…” Idly she strokes her lovely hair, seeming full of youth which seems to often be fading. “Something you found only with me…? It felt… nice to have a… fake brother and real lover, pleasure and warmth, when my hands only, otherwise…?”

“… It was nice.”

 

 

 

(It meant everything to me.)

 

 

 

That admission brings him to his knees with the fierce burning inside turning hotter. It’s like a thousand beetles chewing through, desperate to reach the surface!

 

“AHGH!? HAH!?”

As if his belly should be sliced clean open, he reaches to pile the intestines back in.

But, there’s nothing hanging, and no blood…!?

 

(She… every time she gets nearer to me… or I think about her…!?)

 

Only darkness wraps about him!

Howling madly as lethality blossoms!

 

“I belonged, but then slowly it too was taken like every other ‘home’.”

In her hair, a single blotch of reddish pink distracts when her shining hair whips up.

“In shadow while you laughed and sneered, you tried to murder me by stealing it away.”

A flower, a perfect lotus, this bizarre manifestation steals Adris away from any further dreams of forgiveness.

 

Reunites him with paranoia!

“His life is now on the line”, a screeching monster announces in his mind.

 

The black cross agrees with this by flaring up, filling the chapel with all obscuring night. Its weight crashes upon him, too, leaving him at its mercies.

 

(Is she killing me…!? Is the cross…!?)

 

 

 

But the darkness that spills forth like a tide doesn’t wrap around Serras’ suddenly rainbow glowing form and try to enter. Instead, it sends her leaning forward to stem its onslaught!

Blade held against it, she struggles to advance while shedding rainbow.

Every step forward is one more ratcheting up of his mind-numbing pain!

 

(She’s not a combatant if it doesn’t equalize her! Then what is causing this… fucking ache!? This isn’t a [struggle] according to Zennia!?)

 

 

 

When the cross finishes ejecting its devouring mass, it’s no longer a sunlit world that Adris opens his eyes to find.

Exactly like a memory of a Godless Chapel, the walls that bleed with the uncertainties lingering behind them threaten to collapse inward. They revolt the mortal mind with inversions of their principles, hinting at the degeneration of intellect into—!?

 

 

 

(RANTIL! Things will come out to possess me if I’m human here!?)

 

 

 

But while a boy cringes while shaking, begging the allip that possesses him to come to his aid, only silence endures. He lifts his head to watch devilish currents of air swirl back to be eaten by the cross.

Whispers that assail his ears do not sound hurried, only mystified and confident.

Welcoming and forbidding, almost as if they need him to explain what is transpiring.

 

His skin, is it…?

 

(No? I’m… still completely human?)

 

 

 

Still a boy instead of an imp or something worse, Adris rises to find that the world around him is no more.

 

Rather than a bland place of worship, the inversion of the chapel has become that of a horde rushing to storm what is outside, turning safety into hostility. All of the homogeneous figures awaiting matrimony instead resemble the unknowable multitude of creatures gathered for Cethran’s betrayal, shifting and deforming as their uncertain concepts mutate further.

Without fear, they narrowly squeeze by a swordmaiden whose face is shaking with equally unknowable emotions. They have only one destination in mind, which is to bring terror to what fears them outside, so long as it is not within sight of Serras.

 

Even though only a single lotus mars her beauty, this ravenous parasite in her hair refocuses an obsession.

 

 

 

“I gave everything to you, you… selfish hypocrite! Even if all I understand is aura and blade, and you compliment me for it, what is the point if you stop praising me!?”

The same hopelessness as in the tomb awakens when Serras climbs another tier toward being “genuine” to Adris’ senses. No longer merely someone who seems familiar, the difference between that fateful encounter and now is blurring to the point of nonexistence!

 

(Is she real or isn’t she!? I was having doubts, but now!?)

 

Simply playing out the events again, this “partner” begs him with her hand to her breasts. A killing sword shakes with frustration.

“If you get all the ‘power’ you desperately crave, despite already having more than me, will you… even need me after!?”

Such a blindingly stupid assertion drops Adris’ guise, bringing out true feelings and clenched bowels.

“More power than… who!? Who has more power than you, because I sure as fuck don’t!”

“Stop lying to me, Adris!?”

Serras spins in place, ejecting a flat, scintillating wave of aura with her streaking sword art.

It severs the altar’s pillars and plows into the wall behind, blinding with debris as Adris teeters over toward her.

 

(WHO THE FUCK IS STRONGER THAN YOU!? Away…! I have to get away!)

 

Proximity accelerates the loss of feeling.

A swordmaiden that casts away defensive means shoots forward to grab him!

 

(She doesn’t want to kill me…! She wants to touch me!? Ah… AH!?)

 

 

 

Behind the lunging Serras that throws off grace to claim him, there is a small figure about his height skipping toward them both down the aisle.

Murk and mire nips at her feet. Gray turns pure, metastatic black as the walls chase after the girl wearing sackclothes.

 

(This… this is… not…!)

 

 

 

Buried so deeply, a recent catastrophe shattered a seal.

Adris had thought it a pointless one after, since nothing terrible occurred.

 

But this…

This hazy manifestation is…!

 

 

 

“Don’t you understand… who you are, aDrIs?”

 

 

 

His sins coalesce into another killer far worse than Serras.

Serras’ presence is physical doom enough already.

 

But, then, there is… this thing which can flense his soul…!

 

 

 

(SEND ME TO THE STARS ABOVE!)

 

Boots nail Serras’ spiteful face, bending her spine back!

With every bit of willpower left, Adris begs these fearsome rabbit boots to…

 

(ABOVE BLACK CLOUDS IF NECESSARY, JUST FREE ME!)

 

 

 

“AGH! Th-The moment I try to seize something…!?”

 

Whistling as he flies, Adris springs up with a bouncing sound to fly through a circular portal to the Zennian heaven above!

 

“Why didn’t you surrender!?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onto the roof Adris touches down, searching for others. He can no longer even consider hiding. The gnawing hunger within connects him to resurgent cancer below.

 

(Like I know where she is by instinct, she nibbles the same lure!)

 

Though not nearly as omnipotent as when it devoured the simulacrum he sent out, this horrible force of guided self-destruction is united with Serras in one purpose.

 

(If that ghost touches me, I will [end].)

 

A dream-eater has plenty of aid within a land so fully cursed as this Zennia he takes in with a dropped jaw, though.

 

(What in the name of the Emperor?)

 

 

 

Golden skies stretch forever onward, lit by the evil wonder above.

It represents only one idea so perfectly that Adris must approve of it if he’s to one day bring it crashing down.

 

The Alchemaster’s mansion hangs fixed overhead, untouched and pure in its revolting absoluteness.

Just as it was in the stained glass window behind her throne, Aurumia’s depraved home is its own separate society and bastion, even if sharing existence with the black mockery of Zennia that the lands surrounding have become.

 

(Where have you sent me, cross!?)

 

 

 

Bleak wastelands warped into the dreams of sinners are stalked by shadowy creatures. Taking form only briefly while he watches, they stain his sight and trouble his sanity before shyly returning to unknown concepts when wandering out of focus.

Aura senses are a curse, burning wildly and answering every question he has about this new world with total accuracy. Threads of knowledge he was unsure could be followed offer potential truths and concealed, yearning existences to unveil for him.

 

Even if all he stares at is the embodiment of “greed” floating upside down in the sky above, that surety will eventually enslave him to the Mistress it belongs to…

 

 

 

The metallic iron taste dripping into his mouth drowns his murmuring tongue.

Eyes cloud over as capillaries burst.

Quickly he withdraws from the impossible colors, smells, tastes, and touches of this…

 

(Between… world…?)

 

“A Zennia which materializes only as the conceptual impressions of those who view it, and maybe what lingers out of sight”, this is Adris’ answer to a question without words to be asked.

 

 

 

Withdrawing his senses wakes him on the flat roof that he’s crumpled onto.

The Veil was so astonishingly kind to protect from this place. Though inhuman, perhaps it instinctively understands the limits of those who cower behind its curtains.

 

“Telling you to surrender… the words spoke a thousand times in my mind. But, when I stood behind your back, prepared… instead of words…?”

 

(No good… she’s still…)

 

Eyesight clears, despite blood supposedly filling his view.

Withdrawing his acceptance of this impossible realm leaves only a rooftop which begins its own collapse into mush.

Unsteadily up on his feet again, Adris darts away with a reservoir of vitality uncapping deep within. It opposes the cancer spreading from the hole in the roof, flowing after a quarrelsome childhood friend.

 

“I didn’t mean to, Adris, I just… when I was supposed to be… unbeatable with others at my back to match you, all I was, was terrified of you.”

“Gack!” Phlegm lodged in Adris’ throat spits out first, before he screams in disbelief. “Who is the terrifying one!? How do I beat a sword through my back!?”

“But… didn’t you?”

 

(No! I just… listened to my…!? AH, FUCK!)

 

 

 

Clinging to Serras’ intrepid pursuit, a horrifying little doppelganger floats after.

Reaching out for him!

 

Behind her, a storm of roaring clouds hungers to devour as it crashes through the skylight!

Whispers scream out for his rebirth once more into beauty/horror.

 

“You wiped me out!”

“No… there’s always a way for you…”

“In what world!? You splattered me over the entire room, you stupid—!?”

 

 

 

“I DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT!”

Crying tears over this outcome, a woman Adris could never hope to beat seems to believe that he should’ve…!?

“… How could you not win? When every single person you’ve ever faced has somehow fallen?”

“Is something wrong with your brain!?”

 

Across the rooftop Adris flees while screeching.

To his right is a roaring wall of bleak destruction born of the soul-searing pseudo-aura that cuts upon his thoughts even with his senses nearly completely blinded.

 

(And there’s a tree, but below is…!)

 

Falke’s isolated courtyard proves just as inaccessible in this adjacent plane, for the orange tree that overgrows the manse and aims skyward sinks into endless black depths.

 

A squat corner tower is the sole escape possible.

And what then?

 

“Men mightier than me, who could crack my spine and feast on my heart, scraped the ground and cried bloody tears after meeting you…!”

“I didn’t fight them, I collapsed their foundations of happiness!”

 

From all sides the storm nears, pursues, swirling to cage him as Serras’ obsession grows.

The complaints slow his footsteps, too.

With how strange they are, Adris wants to contest and overturn them.

 

(Why does rainbow cut obsidian!? Aren’t these two darknesses supposed to be the same!?)

 

Somehow, the darkness of Zennia and the “truth” of Xin don’t mix.

Especially when there are conscious wills behind them.

 

Without understanding why, Adris is doomed to fail once more, even as he feels…?

 

 

 

(No matter how horrified and alone I am, I don’t feel like this is the end!)

 

A compulsion to resist exists where it didn’t before, leaving the mind-numbing effects of confronting the Beyond incomplete.

 

 

 

“What does ‘happiness’ mean? How can you destroy it so easily when they are so powerful? Adris, no matter the shape you take now… even as a boy… I am…?”

“What!? Repulsed!?”

Livid anger bleaks momentarily as Adris howls out, admitting his fear of his own ugliness. Serras instead falls back into a guard, the storm behind her halting; yet, also intensifying.

“… Fearful. Cautious. Like you taught me, I… accept the truth and face it properly.”

“What fucking truth!? Why the fuck would you stab me, when everything was going to be yours!?”

 

(I’m like a bug! I am a bug! YOU SQUASHED ME!)

 

“Every scheme you craft somehow overcomes, even if I can never understand why.”

“What!?”

 

(Scheme!? I didn’t even have one this—!?)

 

“The first time…”

Into herself Serras withdraws, finding comfort in the fell winds that circle her. Rather than deliver cold like they do to a shivering Adris, they are comforting a wanton killer.

“… the first time you overcame impossible odds and we survived, I… to you… could not desire more.”

“Huh!?”

Those eyes full of longing flash now, hungry and sultry from a boy who recoils from a woman’s interest.

 

(You!? You… you can feel hunger for a boy?)

 

Is it boys?

Or is it because it’s Adris?

Unsettled and uncertain, the mystery scratches at him. If it’s Serras, then what she loves and desires might simply be…?

 

“I never wanted… you to pull out from within me. A boy… no, a man who could accomplish anything… I had found that treasure, so young.”

“… S-Serras…”

Wanton longing lingers briefly, before another emotion eclipses it.

With footsteps starting forward again, the storm and the doppelganger called “death” rides in her wake.

 

“The second time, I thought that we could defeat anyone.

The third time, I wondered if perhaps you were an ascended being pretending to be a boy?

The fourth time…?”

Suspicion glints in black eyes.

“I could never pull myself away from you. I knew that no matter how many years went by, that you could conquer the beasts…”

“No, they were…”

“Shut up, Adris! No more lying! We both know how strong you are, how much you hide of your true power.”

 

(Isn’t that my line?)

 

Full of venom when she raises her hand to reach out, she’s more like a revived corpse than a living being.

Hungry for him…

 

(What even is going on? Why does she turn my words on me?)

 

All of the bitter emotions and regrets he felt as he died, weren’t they similar to this?

But while his seemed realistic, worrying about being useless when compared to a goddess who had always far exceeded him, from Serras they seem… almost…?

 

(Is she insane?)

 

“After we escaped becoming cold corpses for the fifteenth time, the counting ended. I could only swing my blade, hone my mind, and search out more techniques to keep up. Strong… strong enough to match you, that’s what I…!”

“ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO YOURSELF!?” A boy’s petulant scream unnerves her, though, rather than shattering her delusion. “Who the fuck would be scared of me, if they know me like you do!?”

 

(… Am I the insane one? I don’t feel insane…)

 

Feeling more like a small, weak boy than a false god, Adris finds himself backed against the tower’s wall as his murderer continues her inexorable pursuit.

Yet, he can’t shake the impression that the corruption aiding her this time isn’t a godlike existence.

 

(I’ve… already begun facing such questions like these, haven’t I…?)

 

“Jilahn was terrified of only one thing. It finally killed him, like all the rest who feared…”

“… Terrified of your exponential aura growth, Serras?”

 

It was the only cause that Adris found likely, though never had he spoken of it.

Fatso had desired a perfect blade, but Adris had to continually assure him, with tears in eyes, that Serras would obey the tyrannical poisoner when requested.

 

It left Adris mortified.

Worried that his assurances wouldn’t be sufficient to allay other methods being tried when Fatso’s confidence failed.

 

“What… did he try to—?”

 

 

 

“He died because his fear of you became too much.”

“… What?”

 

 

 

Numbness is spreading again, despite resistance. From where the pain continues to eat outward, left behind is nothingness.

Its name is “what isn’t Adris”, a creature that isn’t him struggling to take over. Replacing as it goes, the infesting disease consciously aims for the spot that reminds Adris of four lights in his life.

 

(Not there…!)

 

But, also, how could… that impossibly wretched man fear…?

 

“Ji—Fatso… would never…!”

“‘He’s using you, my dear, sweet princess.’” Inexpertly, Serras’ assertive voice takes on the weaselly sound of a wheezing man’s evil intent. “‘I fear that my sword-brother Vohlin won’t see sunrise, since the boy slipped away from his own bed… You see, without me understanding the extent, our dear, sweet boy has, apparently, been terribly hurt by that—’”

“FUCKING LIAR!?”

Bent over in outrage, Adris screams to stop the cruel oration.

 

(How dare you!? YOU WERE THE ONE THAT TOLD ME TO DO IT!?

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH, FUCK YOU, FATSO!)

 

 

 

“There’s only room for one me, heee, heeeee, but, you know, what if there was room for one of you, son?”

 

To ascend to assistant head of the school, Adris had been “entrusted” with a loathsome—?

 

 

 

“FUCKING DICKLESS, BALL-LESS PIG!? YOU SWORE WE’D SETTLE THINGS OURSELVES!?

AHHHHH, I should’ve known, I should’ve known…!”

While a raging boy feels heated winds sweep up around him, turning the gray matter below and around to an even juicier putty, a calm voice calls out from only feet away.

 

“Stop lying. I killed him, just as you predicted I’d need to.”

“… What? ‘Predicted’?”

“You were the only one who loved me! Even if you participated, I knew immediately!” Her anger at Adris fades quickly, instead turning on another. “I knew what you would want me to do to that filth if it was discovered or he tried to use me, what you’d planned for…”

Offended to the core, Serras glares down at him with her hand to her chest, prodding him.

“‘Adris will take care of me’, so… ‘Serras will take care of him.

That was our… ‘oath’.”

“I had no—!?”

“NO MORE LIES!”

 

(ARGH!?)

 

Not only her, but the little horror behind her daintily lunges for him!

Eager, too eager!

 

 

 

Upward he soars, flipping over a parapet that pulls free with his hand.

Soggy alchemical matter, only a dark reflection of itself and growing ever more sinister as it bathes in Adris’ presence, begins to roll around under its own power as Adris crawls away.

 

(She completely… misunderstands me? Fundamentally!?)

 

 

 

Somehow, a legend has grown, seeding in her mind and soul to become a thicket which shrouds her thoughts.

Turned outward to menace the world, all of his acting instead choked her!?

 

 

 

(I wanted to be… a legend called “The Star of Ruin”, to make that cursed name mine. But, who was I really falling on…?)

 

“A tea maid said… that women always understand their men.”

 

 

 

Upon the edge of a roiling abyss lingering just below the tower, Serras precedes its rising flood. She points at a boy who can barely manage to stand.

 

“I understood since I was young, and accepted…”

Then points to herself.

 

“You will never let me go, Adris.”

 

(I never wanted to, but if you did try, how could I—!?)

“IF YOU TRULY WANTED TO GET AWAY, YOU HAD PLENTY OF CHANCES!?”

 

 

 

That’s where he wants to be.

Away from this woman and her ranting, raving storm of accusations.

They reiterate everything that collapsed him in a dream where darkness remade a fragment of Adris into a powerful monster.

Only lingering doubts and questions blunt the transformation he feels ongoing inside.

 

 

 

“Who is Adris fehl Dain? Don’t we already know~?”

 

The silent guardian behind Serras lifts her sackclothes dress and bows toward Adris. Implicitly, without words, this thing mirrors his deepest fears!

 

(Did… Serras always understand how… vile I was?)

 

But, even if he’s vile…!

Didn’t Adris discover…!?

 

 

 

(I found… something “genuine”.)

 

Heartfelt joy spreads, warms with the memory of touching a profoundly strange old woman with beautiful blond hair.

Green eyes full of disapproval at his touches upon a body she so jealously guards, at least until she forces it on him, still manage to be so sisterly, as if he even knows what that means.

 

 

 

“Many times I fled.”

 

Poignant as she admits this, Serras also flashes paranoia with how her eyes dart around. Looking for something hidden from view even as this tyrannical blade maiden makes the tower her execution ground, her voice trembles.

“But, I would always swiftly arrive… only at places I’d been previously with you? I could never travel to a new town… and, at old places, there were only graves… corpses, blood, and…?”

“… Gah, and…?”

Unwilling, but compelled, Adris partakes in a one-sided recollection of all of his sins as seen through another’s thoughts.

 

“Every time I thought I’d be free of thinking of you, of… obsessing, I ‘coincidentally’ ran into someone who knew me… and —you—.”

“That’s because they…!? I told them…!”

 

 

 

“Hey, though we may never meet again, could I ask a favor? Haha, with recompense, of course, don’t mind that!?”

With every village and town, Adris had left coin and an easy request. Always with a bow or an uncommon hug to show how deeply it was appreciated.

“Will you please look after Serras if she should wander in one day alone? If she’s alone, I’m afraid that probably means that I can’t—?”

 

 

 

“Your spies were everywhere.

Asking.

Demanding, with clever words.

Refusing to leave!”

 

Shaking like a leaf in these winds, a strong woman shatters along with her pride as she howls!

 

“THEY WOULD NEVER LEAVE! I COULD NEVER STOP THINKING ABOUT YOU WITH THEM AROUND!”

“They… they weren’t spies, they—!”

 

 

 

“And so, I closed your eyes forever.”

“… they were—

 

Ah!”

 

With a finger running across a rainbow edge, Serras grins maniacally. Wet cheeks seem like a lie with how truly happy she acts, giggling once before noticing that Adris is still…

 

“Even the tea shop lady was one of your spies, wasn’t she? It was sad, very sad, but, I just… had no choice…

I couldn’t, not do it, since I was… coming back to you, again. If I let it spread that I’d… tried to…?”

Almost breathless, Serras’ eyes shake with her worst admission of culpability.

 

(They weren’t spies. I… just felt… too stupid about setting up—? It was a safety measure. “Always look to the future, Adris.” It was for your future, so I never… said anything…?)

 

 

 

“Every time I thought I could finally try to leave again, eventually I could no longer breathe once I did.

Every set of eyes I was forced to poke out, it did nothing to stop you, did it?”

 

Silence is Adris’ answer as tears rain down.

No matter what Adris’ concern about whether this “Serras” has authenticity before now…?

 

(At least… these emotions and memories are ones I never knew. They are definitely “real”.)

 

Her heartache accuses him with suspicious eyes, lips curling under her teeth before she spits out rancor.

“You were behind the corner of the loft at Dran’shi, weren’t you!? Watching me try to sleep… try to eat…?

Following me, laughing at my… discomfort?

Watching me, trying to… talk to people, but I couldn’t find words?”

The fever afflicting her body grows too strong, leaving Serras shaking as she childishly points at Adris.

“Laughing— at— me, the stupid murdering girl that couldn’t even order food when you weren’t making sure I didn’t screw up…!?”

“No… no, Serras, I wasn’t—”

 

 

 

“SHUT UP!”

A burst of pure aura flings a scrawny boy toward solid stone, leaving it squirming after, though not from any pain of impacting.

As he shivers, she unsteadily lurches to follow.

 

(I didn’t mean to… include you in the effect I was trying to…?)

 

An entire storm hovers overhead.

The funnel of the cyclonic winds encircles the tower, drawing them closer to each other and their mutual fate.

 

 

 

“You said you did everything for me, but word travels quickly when noble women engage in trysts. Even simple girls can experience their hearts shatter like they do in folk tales, Adris.”

“… I’m sorry. I thought it was necessary. I… was… wrong…”

 

Back on his knees, the anger Adris feels seems to be a faint ember.

Even though she’s still wrong, like in the apocalypse of the Investiture…

 

(I strayed.)

 

A single sin unites with others.

Not even Adris can walk these back once they connect.

The strands form a noose around his neck, drawing tight and silencing his refutations.

 

“I finally understood your… [love], then.”

“… No, that wasn’t love…! It was…!”

 

(It was an escape!)

 

Betrayal born of desperation.

A need to feel something other than…!

 

 

 

“Completely unbeatable. Even if you… died on… Xin, if this is another world, then you still beat me, like I knew you would.”

“… No, I didn’t, I’ve just been surviving as—!?”

 

The ringing cross cuts him off, though, when it gongs out.

Hands of wispy malevolence flinch back from its great din, retreating unseen over the parapet.

 

(I didn’t feel them…!)

 

“You said you’d give me the Emperor’s remnant, but you stole that from the tomb, didn’t you?”

“I did! But, I didn’t mean to—!”

“I see. That was cross… the real inheritance, is it? Such a… coincidence that you use it against me now.”

 

(I didn’t intend to take it!)

 

 

 

Suddenly, there’s no distance between them.

Only a beautiful woman with silken, sky-dark hair tangled by lotuses.

 

Funerary clothes and a veil hide her skin, but he’s tasted it so many times that he can describe it with his tongue. A blood-stained butcher’s ugly sword clatters to the floor, seemingly no longer needed for her purposes.

 

Her hand reaches for his, begging it to rise to greet…

 

 

 

“Adris… even after all of that… and all you will no doubt do…

Even after a lifetime of lies and a painful heart that I can hardly keep together…

… I still can’t… live without you.”

“… Ugh!?”

 

An admission of surrender, any kind or flavor, is the worst temptation for a man who longs for victory.

With the storm roaring in his ears, Adris can’t even be sure that it was Serras speaking or the evil creature at her side.

 

His view of the world, through senses unique to him and keenly focused, registers the threat before him solely as [death of the self].

 

“Both are the same being, in essence,” this is what his senses tell him even if his heart begs differently.

Trusting this preternatural intuition over his emotions, Adris can only decide that… this woman is reflecting Adris’ sins back on him.

 

(This is why the pain grows…! The closer I am, the stronger the resonance!)

 

 

 

Even if the guilt should be crushing him, it’s not managing to win.

All of these guilts are no longer fresh. They lack the hammer blows of before.

 

(I am a terrible man, but I have already understood that! I am trying to change… here!)

 

 

 

“I understand, Adris: your love will always be selfish. You will only accept me so long as I fit within your ‘world’.”

“No… I don’t…!”

 

A grown woman kneels to hug him, lingering just outside of grasping him.

Up from his intestines, the cancer aims for his heart. It’s now unbound and hungry for the final push.

 

The pain devours his thoughts save for Serras’ words and the lingering hatred he feels for her.

 

“Didn’t you want to change the world, Adris?”

 

 

 

His head lifts to aim at the sky.

 

Two hands, a woman’s and a girl’s, point toward the impossible mansion floating inverted above them.

 

 

 

It laughs at them.

Every gilded speck of it exists to taunt.

To remind all who witness it that they can never reach it.

 

 

 

Within, there is… only a hatred for…

 

(There was… someone… I despised… enough to swear an oath.)

 

 

 

“I like that place, Adris. It mends my heart with hate and makes the bile in my throat taste sweet. Do you want to live there, too? I always wanted to live in the Imperial Court.”

 

Unable to see her face, Adris still knows that she’s smiling.

All of his senses are failing, yet when she’s happy, it’s the one time that he can feel happy too.

As if he’s… a mirror for her feelings?

 

(I have had plenty of happiness since coming to Zennia.)

 

 

 

Not just happiness, but also people and promises.

Oaths?

 

That which was sold as a bond instead has become a life.

As many bonds as he has, his life seems to be exponentially growing.

 

He intended this, so that people couldn’t escape from him…!

 

 

 

“Adris, let’s—!” Choking on her joyous exclamation, Serras finally relaxes and nods once.

 

 

 

“Try again?”

 

 

 

“No… I don’t…!”

“… please?”

A red hot poker strokes his face, aiming towards a mask which shines even in this storm that rejects it…!

“AAAAAAHHHHH!?”

 

The moment the unwelcome finger touches the obsidian, a flashing spark sends Serras’ angelic hand flying.

“Ah…!

This time, I will be the sword that guides you. Not just [justice], but… [conquest]. I’ll give you all the power you ever wanted, so desperately that you cried in your sleep for wont of having it…”

 

(I ALREADY HAVE THAT POWER NOW! THEY HAVE NAMES!)

 

“Adris, I’ll free you from all that keeps you down, like always.

Everything you promised without me being here, all these burdens.

I… I, to you, will always…!”

 

 

 

(Kol, Avenalliah Aurmaris, Neesiette vera Luna…! Those names are…!)

 

Names of those who stand with him cannot be forgotten!

Especially!

 

(CYRENE STILLWATER! That is… the name of my [partner]!)

 

Even if she is a partner gained after throwing away, being thrown away by, another one.

And one who makes the same mistakes that Adris does, that feels…!

 

(GENUINE!)

 

 

 

“That, what I feel, always, is true. What I feel for you, even if nothing else is right, sometimes? Even if it hurts, even if we hurt each other?

I hate you for what you’ve done, and I always will.

I don’t want to ever hear your voice again, or suffer the lies that spill out of you like an eternal breeze.”

 

(That is what I do. That is what I am. Before I met you, and ever after, it was already too late from too long ago…!)

 

If this woman demands that he cease to be himself, then what does she really want?

If he must give up what defines himself to be with her, then what is she to him?

 

Can Adris accept a lifetime, returning to it and regressing, of only communicating by loving touch?

 

“While, also, I really want…

I desperately hope to die for your sake, and beside you!

More than that… I… Need…!

But, I truthfully…! Will always, to you…”

 

 

 

(I will always love you, Serras.)

 

 

 

But.

There’s a problem with her theory of their glorious reunion.

 

(If you are truly the Serras that killed me on Xin, then I would be absolutely tempted to the point of breaking, but…!)

 

 

 

“That’s why, like you did to protect me, Adris, I will kill them all~!

Everyone who wants to take you from me, and hurt you!”

 

Eyes set behind the mask that belonged to an Emperor, and which now belongs solely to a man trying to survive on a new world, open up fully.

 

 

 

A beautiful girl drenched in blood is ready to hug him.

Her smile is so genuinely pure, despite the gore, that these must be her true intentions. Gone is any inhibition, feeling like she’s finally in control of a destiny she is writing.

 

“You’re mine, Adris. I won’t ever let you get away!

Every last problem, I’ll solve. Not complex, but simple solutions.

No more… things to tempt you, no more temptations?”

 

Small hands proudly point display a blade made for severing dreams and ending lives.

The moment he speaks “yes”, this wonderful genius child will tear through the manse belonging to a sly old bastard and…

… “clean it out”.

 

 

 

“I… I love you, Adris. Did you know that?”

“… Yes. Since the first day you called my name. It’s just…”

 

 

 

(Serras could never tell me that. Not truly, not meaning it, even if she did feel it.)

 

“Why did you used to hum a song while picking berries, every time, without fail until one day you simply stopped?”

“I will—!

… What?”

 

(But, there’s no point in telling you how I truly feel if you’re just a fraud.)

 

 

 

Astonishment overtakes the anti-social girl. Inches from kissing him on the lips, this question leaves Serras scrunching her face quizzically.

“What… why? It was because… I…”

 

Darkness flares up around her, a horrified expression settling into a fragile child who shouldn’t know pain at such a young age.

“It was the song… my mother taught me… before I…!?”

“I see, I never knew that?”

 

(That makes sense… then, how about…?)

 

A logical mind shuts out the emotional one, telling “the Adris who loves Serras” to kill himself.

Cold rage approves, biding its time.

 

“Then, why did you favor that shade of blue, the one we had to go to Dur’quan to fetch dyes for?”

“Blue!? Why? What… this question…?”

“I asked you before… but you said it wasn’t important! And… you pretended it wasn’t…! But, was it unimportant, with how you frowned when I said ‘no’!?”

“It…?”

 

The storm rages once again, but much more cowardly until its swirling clouds soften.

A look of disbelief settles into her as she curls her lips, abandoning the excruciating pain from before as if it’s a jest.

 

“Blue was… the first color that you said I looked beautiful while wearing…? And it felt like… you weren’t lying…?”

This rapture of being thought beautiful spreads, overtaking even the rage that once left her ice cold toward him.

 

 

 

(I SEE, THAT IS QUITE A HIDDEN TRUTH!)

 

Very important.

A defining point.

Something concealed.

Something unknown.

But, something real and full of potential.

 

The province of pure, unadulterated [darkness].

 

 

 

(You, cruel thing… inside me… riot now!

RUN RAMPAGE!

HATE AND DEVOUR!

WAKE THE FUCK UP!)

 

 

 

At his command, a screeching monster vibrates his succumbing, numb body!

It strains his flesh, threatening to burst out with the moment of revolt identified!

 

“Adris!? What are…!? Why call it!?”

“GOOD QUESTION!? Do you know since I won’t answer!? How do you know what’s stirring!? I have more questions, too!”

 

The pain that the tyrant from his boots brings is invigorating!

While hers makes him insensate, its turns him incensed.

Even if they both appear as illusory children in each other’s eyes, as innocent as they were in the beginning…

 

(How about asking things that aren’t important, but I still don’t know!? Let’s discover what’s real, as much as we can!)

 

“What was your sword’s name, the one you said was stupid, and abandoned immediately before telling me!?”

“My sword… it…?”

“What were your parents’ names!?”

“I… called them…?”

“Who was the first student that you sparred with… because I was late to arrive… and I didn’t see!”

“He… she… was…?”

 

Blankness is her response, for the surrounding tumult doesn’t roar.

Instead, its energies sap away!

 

“What was the second fruit you ate as a child!? What was your third favorite province to visit!? Can I get some less important questions for you to answer, Serras…!?”

“Ad-Adris…!?”

 

Despite knowing so much and sharing so many secrets, this Serras can only fail to find the answers she’s searching for regarding ordinary details.

 

So smooth was she with all of her heartache that he almost didn’t notice.

The wonderful details that Adris finds important, but were missed because they weren’t felt strongly.

 

All of the wonderful connecting threads that should be guiding the deep feelings were missing, all the times of fulfillment and refutations of their mutual antagonism hidden beneath formalities unmentioned, any moments where they shared nearly open affection that soothed all of this casually bypassed—!?

 

“I’ve ruined so many more things in our relationship than just what you’ve spoken about! Tell me something you hate about me that I wouldn’t know, but it’d be obvious to another!?”

“I… to you…!?”

“LET US ASSUME THAT EVERYTHING YOU’VE SAID TILL NOW IS TRUE!

Does that still mean you are ‘real’?”

 

Hands lift up a purple sash to meet her blade.

They hold it before this “Serras” to let her read the glyphs stitched in black upon it, an unwelcome, bony language that not even Adris can glean intent from.

 

“UGH! HAAAAHHH!?”

“RIGHT! That’s the reaction I longed to see!”

 

At the sight of what belongs to a priestess standing only for pure abuse, a horrific manipulator that spares only questions for her victims while carrying [TRUTH/TECHNIQUE], the answers she could give but refuses to, within herself…!

 

 

 

(This “girl” feels revulsion! But isn’t that wrong, when she carries “techniques”, too!?)

 

 

 

Darkness should equal “Truth”, but a cross from Xin that was composed of nothing but Truth had failed to harm a being made of it like Cethran.

In contrast, the cross was harmed by a sword which carries Drops of Creation…!?

 

(So long as Darkness calls it real, a forgery made of the unknown can achieve the state of “Truth”!?)

 

It’s a paradox, but the cross’ constant ringing doesn’t change in tone.

Deafening now, it is.

It rejects this girl in order to protect him.

 

 

 

Because…?

 

(Adris fehl Dain is this cross. We are the same self-wrought destiny.)

 

The moment he tumbled down the jaguar’s tunnel of clinging cloth and was changed by the deathly light shining from behind the curtains, his destiny was forever altered.

 

 

 

(Darkness is infinite potential and possibility, that which is unknown and unknowable. But, techniques do not change once understood!)

 

Even though Adris’ powers have altered many times as his understanding of them grows and reformulates, techniques never changed on Xin!

This is the basis for them, perfect crystallizations of knowledge!

 

(Therefore — my senses that once attuned to “aura”, which let me see “darkness” too…!)

 

 

 

“You… aren’t… Serras.”

“I am who I always have been, Adris! And… you are mine, for forever!”

 

Full of madness as black eyes flash, a little girl covered head-to-toe in blood and gore hefts up a sword by its blade with both hands.

 

“I WILL NEVER LET YOU GET AWAY!

YOU LOVE ME AND MADE ME LOVE YOU!”

 

A point refuses to descend, no matter how much this bawling creature wishes it would.

As a matter of course, the events click into place as Adris begins to wrap the senses-deadening purple sash around his eyes.

If he is correct, this… “pseudolife” cannot possibly interfere with his actions except to entice.

 

(Pseudoprósōpon deformed under exposure to the cross and sought new, twisted forms? A fencer gained an archer by investing his feelings into having a “twin”? Strange, new people with fully formed personalities, like Castile, are walking around after the fight in which I felt the cross’ energies get stolen?)

 

It’s so trivial now.

The moment it all clicks in his mind, even the fear of this nightmare born of a true danger within his heart is nullified.

 

(Ahhhhh, I’m so fucking stupid. That bastard called Serras something brought out for my benefit. The gall of his impotent pride.)

 

You can call a storm that threatens to devour a dark world to menace a boy; but, if that boy has a place to shelter within and survive the first time riding through it, then he’ll cease being scared the second time.

 

 

 

The butcher’s ugly, broken cutter clatters when cast aside.

Something intended to serve a “master” cannot harm that person, of course.

 

“Adris… I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU, SO, PLEASE!?”

 

Fragile hands reach for Adris’ neck, then his shoulders, then to hug him, but cannot touch without rejection.

Because permission was never given.

 

“WHY!?

WHY WON’T YOU COME BACK TO ME!? ADRIS!?”

 

A psyche is collapsing.

But it’s not Adris’, this time.

 

Just as vulnerable as the day he met her, this “Serras” longs for “something real”.

She can recall so much that not even he knows whether such an existence counts as “real” or “fake”.

In a moment, she may even tempt him with that bargain of offering “a genuine thing”, if her refocusing eyes and hopeful look are any indication.

 

 

 

(I save a special kind of hate for you, but judge this answer, Cethran.)

 

The oldest oath beneath the layers of others is one which states that Adris cannot lie to a being called Cethran.

It’s a surprisingly useful oath if one views it from another perspective.

 

 

 

“In the end, this is a truth about Adris fehl Dain:”

 

At the mention of “truth”, Adris’ heart seizes.

The ringing cross sounds louder and with more urgency.

 

Trying to answer a pledge to state his own “truth” curdles the breath in his lungs, scraping at the soft, spongy innards!

 

(OF COURSE! YOU BITCH, THIS WAS ALWAYS THE FINAL TRAP, WASN’T IT…!?)

 

 

 

“Ah… ‘Adris fehl Dain… cannot willingly choose to embrace comforting falsehoods when the genuine thing lurks in the dark just out of sight!”

 

 

 

When spoken…

 

Nothing obvious occurs.

Except for the swirling of pseudo-aura within Adris, beginning to race, as if afraid!

A shifting of his thoughts aligning with this assertion cuts off possible futures that by definition harm his own uncertain goals!

 

The option of reaching out to wrap his arms around “Serras” can no longer be considered.

It forever dies within his heart.

 

(Unchangeable… admitted truths…! Are terrifying…!?)

 

 

 

“So…!”

 

Adris’ stomach twists up, but there’s nothing left to be said.

An absolute truth about Adris fehl Dain escaped.

 

With it spoken, though, he can no longer be harmed by the nightmare tornado that even now abandons its ally called “Serras” and prepares for Adris’ coming onslaught.

 

“… It’s time… to wake up.”

 

Her limp hands reach for the sash, unable to touch it.

The last glimpse of this “Serras” before the sash blocks view is of a childhood friend, love, confidante, and partner mouthing a word.

Full of vileness, an innocent face sags with the impotent rage she can no longer spew trapped forever within.

 

It’s a familiar word, but it doesn’t have the same rationale or impact as when he mouthed it.

 

 

 

(“Traitor”? No, I’ve betrayed no one, thankfully.)

 

Adris of Xin died, murdered by Serras.

His betrayal was already punished.

 

(If I had chosen you, I…)

 

 

---

 

 

Adris of Zennia whistles within a boundless plane.

 

 

 

(Had I chosen “Serras”, I, of course, would’ve died for betraying them.)

 

 

 

A world within a world, like two cups of different sizes placed within each other, has lost its heavenly stars in the sky and below the invisible ground.

 

Instead, four spheres circle the burning starlight at their center of orbit.

Each is a different color: green, blue, yellow, or red.

 

Within their cores a shining glyph resides, forever encased by the stretching black strands of an oath which maintain their cyclic harmony.

Around the red orb, fireflies flitter and orbit.

In the far distance of this solar cycle, a lonesome green planet shines with its own light, refusing to glow with the star’s radiance.

 

That oath he made that established this new world, if violated, will “kill” Adris when they burst free and into disharmony once more.

 

Even if something that survives the carnage resembles him, it won’t be a [false god].

 

(The Investiture changed me, too?)

 

Unwilling to peek within after, Adris is nonetheless proved to be a far different creature now! Whatever ill-defined energies contained within plot and conspire about his future, the form of their oath is acceptable.

 

(Just, not that part.)

 

 

 

Invisible to his senses outside, when peering within his soul this deeply he can grasp the ongoing loss.

 

At the bottom of the blazing dark star, its shining energies swirl downward toward a great unknown instead of joining with the emblems which represent four girls.

They congregate instead within a creeping area of his Inner Expanse, one which twitches with his “sight” set upon it.

 

(This was where the bad stuff was sealed.)

 

No longer terrifying to behold, all of Adris’ worst excesses and evils are plainly obvious.

When accepting and qualifying them, the cancer shudders in pain. Its parts evaporate into chaotic, noxious mists that then escape to the furthest corners of his soul.

 

Bit by bit, what’s revealed under the cancer by the magic called “acceptance” is…

 

 

 

(Falke, you incompetent, you chose the wrong place to poison me.)

 

Sparkling rainbow remnants shine between the gray lattice-work that attempts to rejoin pieces.

A round aura core is the desired goal, but the living “false face” empowered by darkness cannot truly recall the shape destroyed by Serras’ crime.

More a jagged geode, the perfect circle can never be achieved.

 

(I see. That was why we felt so close.)

 

 

 

A ruined spear lifts up for the last time.

Summoned by his love for it, this “wife” of his has one last flight left in her.

At her tip, Adris’ killing intent gathers.

 

(I’m not afraid of my mistakes anymore. They do not rule me.)

 

Such a near past like this treasonous, dead aura core is an anchor.

Clinging to a false life that can never be regained, it cannot be permitted to drag him under the waves.

 

(I am the one who rules in dark.)

 

 

 

“‘Adris fehl Dain moves toward an unknown future’, is that right, Cethran?”

 

 

 

From this gray matter tendrils form.

One last attempt to ensnare him launches out, seeking to merge with him by any means necessary!

 

 

 

“See ya, ‘fake’.”

 

The spear rears back, with Adris’ muscles bulging as he prepares to hurl it.

All of his hopes merge with it, instead.

 

“[Piercing Death].”

 

 

 

Adris’ favorite technique, despite being so mediocre on Xin, is sufficient for this degraded parasite.

Blades of night splurt the gray that seeks its own life through stealing his.

 

 

 

To pierce and free him.

 

 

 

---

 

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Chapter 107         Table of Contents          Chapter 109