Andre’s disgusting cockiness made Chris cringe. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, making fists over and over. “I can’t drag people along when I’m dashing. Even if you held onto me while I did it. It wouldn’t work. The ability is strictly limited to the Relic Wielder.”

“You’re the man who always has a plan. You figure something out.” Andre pocketed the vial and zipped his pocket. “Get moving.”

Chris squinted toward Andre over the chasm. Imagining all the different flavors of scummy faces he was making, feeling victorious over his helpless opponent. That arrogance will lead to his defeat. He backtracked and held up his shield, smirking behind it. “Okay, I’m dashing back. We’ll figure something out.” Chris ran and jumped. “Amazzi-go!”

He reached the midway mark and opened his mouth again to make the command as he fell towards the beam.

The Jengu manifested in front of him.

Chris blocked the double slash attack and hit the beam on his back; his shield slipped from his grasp and took a dive toward the sand-trap at the bottom. He got up and balanced himself on the beam, and then, Jengu Walidah came at him again.

As a burst of adrenaline took over his body, Chris ducked, letting the attack pass over him, and bolted toward the end of the beam. “Andre! You need to hit Walidah to get her Jengu form off us!”

“No, I would never!”

“It’s for the both of us! Turn around!” Chris leaped into the air, pulling back a fist. Andre remained still and took the punch.

Chris tumbled to the end of the platform and got up on one knee, scowling at Andre. “You’re the most frustrating human being I have ever met!” he said, panting.

“I’m not going to let you hurt Walidah!”

“She’ll kill us both, you moron—!”

“He was going to steal the antidote!” Jengu Walidah’s ghostly voice shouted. She flew to Andre and floated by his side.

Andre looked at Jengu Walidah and then gave Chris yet another smug look. “Oh, really?” He walked toward the beam, lied on his stomach, and began his perilous balance test.

Having more than enough with the twins’ ever-changing behavior, Chris pulled out his rusty gun and aimed at Walidah’s main body tied to Andre’s back. A wall of water rose in front of him, making him cease-fire and look around.

He was encircled by rising walls of water. As they began to curve, Chris sprinted toward it, jumped, and rolled over midair as if taking part in an Olympic high jump event and landed roughly on his back. He watched the sphere close at the top and the inside fill with water as it floated up. His eyes darted to Jengu Walidah, and he saw her making erratic movements with her arms like a crazed music conductor. Her jagged swords were her sticks, her spheres were her orchestra, and Chris was a reluctant audience member who wandered right into the middle of the spectacle.

He pulled himself up as another water wall encircled him. He jumped out of it before it finished closing, landing on his shoulder. He aimed at Jengu Walidah.

She made an ear-piercing screech, disrupting his aim, and began swinging her swords around with more intensity as she spouted words in a Cameroonian dialect, producing mass chaos.

Water spheres were rising all around Chris and from under the chasm. The area became polluted with a parade of spheres of different sizes slowly filling with water. Moving only on instinct, he hopped onto a sphere and cradled onto it as it rose. Chris stood up and jumped from sphere to sphere, making his way to Jengu Walidah.

“You can’t dash underwater, all I have to do is get you submerged,” Jengu Walidah said.

Chris remained focused and stopped on a sphere hovering over Walidah. He had his gun aimed down at her and fired.

The gun burst in his hand.

Chris fell off the sphere and landed on another on his back. He yelped in pain as he looked at his burnt hand—admittedly; he knew he could be too angry. Firing a recently submerged rusty gun is more than pushing one’s luck.

“Lukwata,” Chris called and stood on the sphere as he equipped the shield as eyed a charging Jengu Walidah in his direction. She dipped and burst the sphere with a slash, hurling him into the air. “Amazzi-go!” Chris screamed from the top of his lungs and propelled at Walidah in water form, knocking her back. He fell back onto another sphere in his normal form.

As soon as they regained their composure, they exchanged looks, signaling each other that their next move was going to be the one to end the fight. Walidah stretched her arms to her sides and then slowly pulled them together as she spoke in the Cameroonian dialect. The spheres in the area moved in the same direction—towards Chris, like a magnetic pull.

Chris glanced at his shield and braced himself for the last resort. There was no other way. He had to do that. He squatted, feeling his exhausted muscles contract and hearing multiple joints make concerning cracks, and jumped as high as he could. In the open air, his body eased from the strains and, for a split second, he smiled. “Tamasha la Maji!”

He liquefied and split in various directions. In the form of multiple projectiles, he bounced off the colliding spheres chaotically, gaining speed with each hit, like a pinball in an arcade machine (with the player having a really good run). Chris careened away from the spheres just before they collided, crushing what could’ve been him in the center.

And he struck Jengu Walidah from every direction there was.

The shower of projectiles forced her to let go of her weapons and crash into the sand on the other side of the chasm, making a mushroom sand cloud after landing.

Chris reformed right on top of Jengu Walidah in the small crater they made. The extreme aches all over his body fixed him in place. All he could do was groan continually, and then he was lifted off Jengu Walidah and pushed back onto the sand. He held the vexed glare of the male twin.

“You’re definitely not getting the antidote after what you pulled,” Andre said, untying Walidah’s main body from his back. He placed her down and then lifted Chris by the collar. “I am going to have to punish you for that.” Andre drove a fist into Chris’s face. Delighted with the feeling, Andre treated himself to delivering another punch. “Ooh, that felt good!” He laughed as he continued beating him and then stopped to grimace at Chris’s face, now degraded to a bloody pulp, and let go of him. “See ya,” he snorted, and then spat some fat, white phlegm at him.

The mucus had a bizarre cooling feeling on his heated cheek. Chris strained his mental capacities to pull his enervated arm muscle up and wipe off the spreading viscous spit before it touched his lip — he only managed a single swipe and his arm flopped onto the sand. With the rest of the goop resting on his cheek, he watched Andre slog away and stop.

Walidah’s main body was standing up and was scowling at Andre. Her chest was slowly rising and lowering. “How could you lie to me like that?” Walidah said, touching the top of her afro.

Andre flashed a nervous smile. “Wha-wha-what are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about!” She yelled, making a stomp. Her dark brown eyes were reddening.

“Walidah, can we please do this later?” Andre pointed at the tombstone on the platform near them. “The Tombstone Checkpoint is right there! We’re almost out of here!”

Suddenly, her rage was washed over with deep dejection. She looked off to her side and puled. “You never planned on helping me win the Trials for Malika…” she said, her voice becoming shaky. “You were just waiting for an opportunity to get me to forfeit the Relic. You were actually going to try to get me to forfeit the Relic to Chris!”

Chris’s eyes widened and made sure to keep his mouth close in case a lone line of mucus decided to venture in there. He gambled with his luck enough for the day.

Walidah wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her shoulders. “It was so scary being in that… form. I could hear so many things at once. It was hard to think.” She glanced at Chris and then returned her focus to Andre. “Your spirits… I could see and hear them. It was so loud… so painful.” She sobbed. “I could see just how much lying you do to get your way.”

Being a reluctant spectator, Chris shifted his gaze toward Andre. Walidah’s disappointment, confusion, and anger were taking a physical toll on him. He lost vitality as if he were aging right before him.

Andre reached for her hand. “Walidah…”

She pulled back. “Don’t touch me!” She paused to sob again. “You liar!” she barked. “I expected it from the others, but you? Even you don’t believe she’s real? H-h-how could you! After everything she’s done for us!”

“I do believe in Malika!”

“Stop lying! You can’t see her… you never could. I know everything, Andre. There’s no point in lying to me...”

The siblings stood in absolute quiet.

Chris made his move as he felt the minuscule jolt of energy zip through his body. He crawled up to Andre and reached for his pocket.

Andre stomped onto Chris’s hand and squashed it slowly. “Have some decency, we’re doing something important here.” As he turned back to Walidah, she was looking off to her side and nodding.

Walidah turned back to him slowly. “So, what did she say?” she asked.

“Well, she said—”

Walidah raised her hand. “Forget it! You’re just going to lie again.” She closed her fist and lowered it. “I never asked you that question directly, y’know? Because I didn’t think I needed to…”

“She gave up the chance to experience the world for us to live! For years, she watched us from the sidelines; bottling the pain of never being able to interact with this world in any other way. And then you and I promised her we were going to change that, and now, now you’re tearing away the hope we gave her. That’s cruelty. If only you could actually see and hear how much she’s crying now.”

Andre looked down at the ground and sighed.

“I’m not going to forfeit my Relic,” Walidah declared. “I am going to win.”

“You can’t win, Walidah. If it wasn’t for Silver, then Adisa would’ve killed you. And if it isn’t Adisa, then it’s going to be Mayumi, or Domingos, or Tatsunori, or Takato! We’re not stronger than any of them, okay? We can’t win!”

“Then, it would be a good reason to die.”

“You can’t let yourself die for someone who doesn’t exist!”

Chris looked up and noticed the painful poignance taking over Andre’s expression. He didn’t just stab his sister in the heart; he twisted and salted the wound.

Andre’s body jerked as he opened his mouth and tried to force out some words. “Walidah… I’m—”

“Don’t,” Walidah said sharply, wiping off her tears for the last time. She looked off to her side and nodded, smirking. “You’re right.”

“About…?”

“Not you. Malika. She said that if she was here, and you were on the other side. She’d do everything in her power to bring you over to this side. It’s not fair that it’s her instead of you.” She took a step toward Andre. “You’re ungrateful. You should die.”

“Walidah, you’re acting crazy.”

“Don’t call me ‘crazy’!” She raised her fists, getting into a battle stance. “I don’t want to leave this place with you.”

Chris strived to pull his hand from under Andre’s boot but to no avail. He looked at his other burnt hand and imagined it threatening to paralyze completely if he exerted it any further.

“What do you want, Walidah?” Andre asked, exhausted and downhearted.

“I want you to die. To jump into that chasm and disappear from my life forever.”

“Oh, you two are a real piece of work!” Chris grumbled.

The two looked down at him.

Chris shot a look at Walidah and began ranting, as if his body went on auto-pilot. “What’re you going to do? Kill him? Is that really what you want to do?”

“He lied to me!” she shouted.

“Because he cares about you! He loves you. He pretended to see and hear somebody who wasn’t even there for years. Just for you! Do you have any idea how crazy that is? The only reason he was able to deceive you for so long was because he put a lot of effort into it.”

“Or just a lot of paraphrasing I let slip by… I’m not a child who needs to be lied to. If he didn’t believe me, then he should’ve just said so, and then I would’ve lumped him with the other people who are dead to me.”

The comment made Chris twitch. “You know, when those people who are ‘dead’ to you actually die, you’ll realize the painful difference. The dead can’t defend themselves.” Chris paused for a moment, realizing he quoted someone he never thought he would in a million years, and even more baffling, he believed in the words. “If you have a problem, then talk with the person and work it out. That’s the difference! You can still talk to them! Have you ever been angry at a person who is actually dead? It’s exhausting. You can grunt, scream, and twist your face in a hundred different ways, but you’ll never get the opportunity to see if things could’ve been resolved. It’s just over.” He felt his stomach churn as he dug into deep emotions he wasn’t ready to face, taking a mental step back. “Is that what you want with your brother? He has been by your side this entire time. That has to count for something!”

Walidah and Andre were now looking at each other differently. Walidah backed up and looked to her side, focused on something.

“Don’t you have something to say, Andre?” Chris asked him.

Andre lifted his boot off Chris’s hand to his relief and walked up to Walidah.

Chris shook the pain from his hand and crawled to Andre. He heard footsteps coming from behind him, but ignored and focused on his target. He reached for Andre’s pocket and slowly zipped it open.

“I would’ve preferred if you were just honest with me,” Walidah said.

“I would’ve lost you if I was honest, and I can’t bear the thought of that. You’re my best friend, Walidah.”

Chris sneaked his hand into the pocket. The footsteps became louder.

“I wanted to believe in Malika. I tried so hard for years,” Andre said, “but I just… couldn’t.”

“Do you think I’m crazy?”

Chris got the vial and let out a silent cry of victory right before freezing in terror.

“I—”

And that was all that came out of Andre.

Walidah’s shirt was splattered with blood. Inches away from her chest was the curved top of the ngulu’s blade.

The blade was halfway across Andre’s chest and extended out the center. The ngulu retracted, allowing more blood and gutsy bits to squirt out.

Adisa turned Andre back to him using the magnificent curve of the ngulu and hacked and slashed with no mercy, finishing him with a kick to the face.

Andre tumbled across the sand, staining it red with his blood.

Walidah gaped back at Andre.

“Will you go to him or attack me?” Adisa asked calmly.

Walidah fainted.

“Figures…” Adisa smiled as her Jengu form materialized before him with her dual swords equipped. He dropped the ngulu and reached down for the wrist of the body she left behind as she charged at him. He pulled the body up.

Jengu Walidah pierced her main body and looked over in horror at Adisa who sidestepped with impeccable timing. Jengu Walidah disappeared alongside her swords with a dying gasp as the original woke up and instantly fell to her knees, looking down at the oozing wound in her gut.

“Arguably the most useful Relic one could have at a competition like this. You could make it all the way to the finals without revealing the ability to get a second wind after being killed. With that element of surprise, you would assure your victory, but as you’ve proven, in the hands of someone with no control over their emotions and just plain… stupid. It can be useless.”

Walidah lied onto the sand on her stomach, slowly turning into a husk.

“Leaving your body unattended right in front of the opponent. Not very smart, Walidah.” He paced. “But it’s not like I am disappointed. This is fantastic. The story is now complete, and I got to see all of it.” He took out a notepad from his pocket and gazed at Andre.

Chris shuddered as he eyed Adisa. He was no stranger to the behaviour. Everything to him was just another story.

“The tale of the man who loved his sister so much that he played along with her delusion throughout the years and the sister who was so focused on a fantasy that she failed to appreciate what was right in front of her. What was real.” Adisa stopped to remove his floopy sandals, pushing his toes into the sand.

Chris studied Adisa’s peculiar smile as he enjoyed the sand. This was the man who led Post Mortem for years and chose each of his future opponents. Not for their skill, but for their potential to quench his twisted desire for artistic inspiration.

Adisa fixed on Walidah as the ashes, and cracks appeared. “And the moment comes for revelation. The moment to make amends. The moment he confronts his habit of deception. The moment she learns to appreciate his love for her. It’s all taken away from them in seconds. It’s tragic… and a beautiful story.” He dug into his arm cast, pulled out a pencil, and sat on the sand with his legs crossed. “I’m happy I chose you two and I am even happier that I got to see how it all ended,” he proclaimed, opening the notepad and planting it on his lap. He wrote as he went on. “Now, I have what I need to finish this story and a title, too.”

Andre gave out his last breath as he watched Walidah crumble to ash.

Adisa raised his head and showed his deranged smile. “I’ll call it, From The Cradle to The Grave.”