Chapter 14: nonaCt edRo
Smoke. Embers. Fire. Wind. Explosions and shrieks. Crumbling buildings. Bodies under rubble. Drizzling blood. Stenches of scorched flesh. Bloodied swords clattering to the dirt. The cannon fire, the echoing of bullets, the screams of agony.
The sight.
The sound.
The smell.
The taste.
All of his doing. Splatters of scarlet strewn across the battlefield. All him. Homes burnt to join the many ashes hurling away. Only him. Families dying, children crying, bodies piling. All in his bloodstained hands.
"Subaru!"
A shout expelled from out the chaos instilled him back of his senses and turned away from his handiwork. Thick smoke clouded sight, but, he could still discern those ever distinct pupils of hers, as it stared back at his.
"You have a death wish, I suppose?" she shouted again, "Hurry up or you'll get us both killed!"
He lacked the air to respond so only nodded, and hurried away, far from the anarchy, far from the suffering.
Debris continued to thunder the streets, narrowly avoided, as they continued north, pelted by embers that escaped the raging flames. with the relentless blast of cannon fire subduing their hearing. Within sight, through the grey miasma of war, towering above a city of ruins, a clocktower chimed to the starry, moonlit skies. A view that he had yet to desecrate.
Mass chaos shaded them throughout, yet the death, the destruction, hopeless to elude. North ever deeper, ever closer to their goal, the rumble of the earth shook with fewer recurrence and less potency so unlike the many corpses that continued turning more grotesque, more defiled with every last.
His fist tightened, scraping against the sensation of the brown sack in his grasp. Tighten, tighten more, grasping with all effort, never letting go, never slacking a grip. He was very close. Too close to losing now.
Another shout, Beatrice, more alarmed, once again deafened the battlefield.
"Stop moving! Subaru!"
He stopped and at once, the wind blew against him. A breeze in dissonance with the one that still blew with him. A strong, concentrated blast of wind, fast, sharp and deadly. Searing agony immediately set ablaze his cheek, ceaseless throbbing drew and formed trickles of blood to spill down his chin. A free hand rose to tend to the cut. Familiar dread instantly flushed away the pulsing pain, as he met the piercing stare before him, starkly tinged with the glow of burning red.
A slender bruised hand was outstretched before him, unsteady, shaking with the fatigue of battle, bloodshot eyes that stream tears down a bloodied face, gazing with such ferocity, anger, that his eyes flickered briefly above to the scarred skin on her forehead.
"You," spoke Beatrice, arms at a wary brace, "your sister is dead, I suppose?"
Rage could only focus on one. The one it fronted. Ram took a step closer, hostility permeating out every fiber of her being, her jaw tightening, her teeth gritting.
"You do realize his death would only lead to your own?" said Beatrice, "I doubt even reasoning has been lost on you. "
A demon is reckless, so she stepped closer without hesitation.
"I said to stop."
A demon neglects and continues to shrink the distance.
"Subaru, move, run away now!"
But he still yet stood, feet planted firmly on the fractured street, disregarding the danger now mere inches away. He could see her, see the suffering she shouldn't have bear, see the affliction she never deserved, see again his very own doing unfolding before his eyes.
Ruined tattered clothing. Wounds still fresh and bleeding. Strained heavy breathing. Burdens wrongfully given.
Her hand reached forward, struggling a feeble grasp at his own ruined clothing, and tugged him near.
Then he saw more. He saw the tears glistening underneath the dwindling embers. Saw, the anger, the hatred, ultimately be betrayed by more pitiful features - sadness... grief.
"You..." she spoke weakly, "what did you tell her?".
Words had failed him before. They will fail him now, and his silence stayed stagnant.
"Nothing. He told her absolutely nothing," spoke Beatrice in his stead. "You're looking for blame. But her death was never in his hands, I suppose."
A lie. It was a lie. Subaru knew that. She knew that. Ram too, couldn't be deceived.
"You're lying to me!" came a hoarse shout, then a glint of silver flashed with instant haste, before a jagged dagger in another trembling hand, dug into his neck.
His breathing stiffened.
"My sister... wasn't yours to use," She snarled. "You told me I can trust you. You told me you would keep her safe! You said you loved her!"
Pain darted through him as the dagger tore skin, blood flowing across its quivering edge.
It hurt. But it couldn't compare. It will never compare to her own, the grief, still lamenting all that he has done.
"Why do you always lie to me?"
"You kill him... and you'd die as well," said Beatrice, stepping subtly closer. "I might have exhausted my own, but the moment you strike him, the very instant, all his mana transfers over to me. Now if you wish to see another day-"
"You believe I want to live after all this?! To remain, after everything he has done?!"
"If you truly cared for her you will!" Beatrice retaliated, anger a flick in her brow. "Apart from you, who else would remain to honor your sister? Or is it, you would rather her memory remain a bloodied corpse on the ground, I suppose?"
Ram's eyes gleamed with grown fierceness, the heavy pant of weariness, anger, all mixed in, made difficult to discern intent.
"Why was it you?" She whispered furiously. "You're but a coward, a lowly fool with nothing to show. A leech feeding upon the backs of greater people before finally discarding them like trash."
The dagger remained, but the pressure had slightly lax.
"A manipulator that feeds on the misery of others. A warmongering monster that plunged an entire country into anarchy. When you walk, when you breathe the air, every second of your miserable existence, I have to wonder, how do you still live with yourself?"
Their gazes remained, undeterred, by cannon fire that blasted within their radius, unbroken, as bits of debris poured down at their feet.
"Because when I look around, no matter my deeds, no matter the many I've slain, I can't help but wonder whom the demon really is supposed to be."
Slowly, begrudgingly, Ram freed her hold. The dagger pricked skin once more as it was slowly withdrawn, and laid slump at her side.
"And she knew..." her gaze held firm and he felt it begin to seep, flowing within his being as if in search, scouring for reasons, answers, to a mystery that had always eluded her, "Still, she loved you."
The tears that fell once more to the ground had only the unbridled sorrow. Ram wept, her breathing faltering as did her footing and collapsed onto bended knees. Her anguish conveyed in her screams of grief, howling away a yearning for what had just been lost.
'Rem!"
Subaru stood and watched...
"Rem."
But bearing no longer...
"My sister."
He started to move...
"Give her back to me."
And as he had always done, as he would continue to do, he ran away.
"Please."
As he ran, so did his thoughts, swirling a countless disarray of faces, of the many that too fell to their knees, that begged with him for the unattainable. Pleading that went unheard, grievances that went unassured. A scourge of misfortune and turmoil for the sole purpose he'd yet to achieve, that he had to achieve, that he will achieve in this long, long night of suffering.
Suffering that he was all a witness to.
Stephanie' gently cradling her daughter, hands gradually deepening with the color of red. Stark veiny beads of it slowly dribbling down her forearms. And he saw.
Kris's limp body swaying along with the occasional breeze followed close by the groan of a tree branch and the soft squeak of a tightened rope. And he saw.
Ilma, Irma, a long loud laugh of pure insanity echoing from the two that resounded loudly in the swift silence of the throne room. The bodies and blood of commoners and guards intermixing with those of royalty and nobility. The King and Queen still with their crowns perched atop their enamored heads, their vacant eyes staring without seeing, clutched tightly in the bloodied hands of their still giggling daughters. And he saw.
A glare as piercing as the sword that dug lightly at his ribs in the ailing hands of a loyal knight that had sought him, ultimately succumbing to his mortality and the many arrows protruding deep through his chest, his arms, his legs. Ferris collapsed, spilling curses to his name until the life finally ebbed away from his eyes. And he saw.
All and yet an unfortunate few to the uncounted, unknown, and the unnamed, that he plagued upon with pain and suffering. Yet, even then, it paled, little more than a meager taste compared to the ones that had refused to forsake him. To the ones that loved him most.
Vividly he could recall the droplets of tears falling from her eyes, her ever enthralling purple eyes. Watched it as sadness brimmed her pupils full. Other times, anger would consume them, but in the case of many loops, an unfortunate mixture of both would reflect back at him. Her smile faded, her gentle tone gone. Emilia would scream and she would cry, and there he would always be, always, awaiting the question, be it shaping as her last breath, blood coating her paling lips or sometimes as a hiss of disdain with her icicle prickling lightly at his throat, the question, despite the countless outcomes, the myriad of transpires, what stayed unchanged, was the open betrayal, the utter disbelief, that tinged her words as it took sound, "Did you really hated me this much, Subaru?"
An answer needed not to be told. The blade that would pierce her body was the inevitable truth. The warmth of the blood that would coat his hand, he would feel it, again and again, and again and again and dgain and ainga and gaind and niadg and iandg...
Again
agAin
AGAin
"AMKE....
aGAin
AGAIn
aGaIN
TI....
agAin
AGAIn
A
G
A
I
N
A G A I N
TSOP."
Through it all, a weight of a million wrongs he carried, creaking atop the cliff of insanity he stood upon, more and more inching closer to a plummet of no return. "I'M ALREADY THERE." But there was still someone there, someone that would withhold steps further to the edge, that would hold close his sins to bear as if it was her own. Regardless of the deeds to be done, actions unquestionably unjustified, there she would be, always, unhesitant to plunge the same depths she would refrain him from jumping into. All and no less willingly happy to do so. For him.
"SHE WAS ANOTHER MONSTER ENTIRELY."
"Rem. Dear, dear, Rem. I hate you. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate.
I
Despise
You.
You were useful. I'mstillgladyoudied.
I hoped they tortured you when you were captured. I hoped your screams and cries as they ripped every single finger off your hand made them laugh. I hoped they relish the smell of your burning flesh. I hoped you cried for me for hours only to realize I wasn't coming. It makes me happy.
I know you didn't tell them about me. No matter how hard they beat you. I know you didn't. You couldn't. You love me. Perhaps a little too much for your own good. And when you finally, inevitably died... I knew you still did."
And, as the words profoundly echoed through, it still rang true. "Still, she loved you."
A smell consisting of burnt flesh, blood and sulfur tinged the ash-stricken sky, ever prevalent, even as they continued departing further away, striding without pause deeper towards the north. They slowed once the clocktower grew massive in scope and the entrance was a mere distance away.
Breathing slowed, walking slowed. The anarchy was far behind them now. All that remained was a somber silence that treaded him to his deepest thoughtsI HATE MYSELF.
"What's wrong, Subaru?" Beatrice asked.
A glance backward. That was all he permitted himself. A chance to look back and see all that he has done. Meeting his eyes first was the heat and bright of burning wood, a roof enveloped in flames, black smoke rapidly gushing out of every opening, a cascade of collapsing supports sounded within the walls of the engulfing inferno.
"Subaru?" inquired Beatrice once more.
A scream immediately interjected the ambiance, a loud shriek of panic and fear, followed by another, much younger voice echoing the screams to a more magnifying degree.
"Nothing... It's nothing, Beatrice." Subaru replied.
The screams repeated enough to eventuate into pleads. More pleads, more deaths, only to go unnoticed. And once again, he saw.
Subaru pried away from gazing and continued walking. "It's just... It's been a long night."
The screaming ceased. The burning didn't.
"Yes, it has been, I suppose," Beatrice said.
Weekly Power Status
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