“Ierba Langsley, is dead,” Nadier punctuated to Trini. “He's a human. It's impossible for him to have survived all these years.”

“True,” Trini replied, the gleam of her frame brightening as she shifted to lean against the door's arch. “As you can see though, that body is nothing but a shell.”

The dark elf quickly drew for a pulse around Langsley's neck and found it. He set his finger below Langsley's nose and found breath. “He's still breathing.”

“Breath denotes not life, but merely function.”

Nadier raised Langsley's head, which yielded without resistance. Staring into the human's eyes, he found them empty. The irises were alive, but lacked the will of the living, glazing through him into the endless beyond.

“What happened to him?

“I don't know,” Trini answered frankly.

Nadier stood back up and stepped angrily to Trini. “Enough games. What is happening here? Why do you want your father dead?”

“Questions questions,” her ears twitched as she grinned.

He held her by her shoulders and slammed her against the wall. “Tell me!” He growled in the dark.

She was still smiling mischievously. “You've really gotten in touch with your emotions these past two hundred years.” His breath was heavy with anger which origins he was unsure of. “You're trying to take control of the conversation. Nice attempt if I was probably anyone else. But I've been planning to kill my father for over a hundred years. It'll take more than angry grunts and a mean gaze to faze me.”

Why was he mad? Was the rage his, or were they the emotions of the one before him? Was he angry as Nadier, or as Arborior? He knew not who Trini or Ierba Langsley really was, his memories still filled with gaps. If he fully restored them, would he come to understand himself more, or lose who he has become?

In his thought, his grip on Trini loosened. Within a second, she broke free of his grasp and swept as his legs, bringing him head over heels and landing hard on the ground. A glimmer of magic later and her sabre was pointed at his throat.

“I like you, Nadier. You're an interesting guy. But even if you don't remember who you were, I do, and don't think for a moment our trust is mutual. I'm using you, just as much as you're using me.”

His eyes darted to the former Omniknight. “What happened to Langsley?”

After a moment, she dematerialised her weapon. “After he died, my father found his corpse. I don't know what he did, but before I knew it, he was fully healed and a willing puppet to his commands, as his personal, powerful bodyguard.”

Nadier sat up, rubbing a sore part on his side. “Can we just kill Langsley now?”

“We could, but he has received fatal strikes before, and my father has always managed to heal his body back.”

The dark elf felt a lump in his throat. The magic of corpse revival sounded akin to necromancy, however, “Necromancy doesn't heal.”

“No,” Trini agreed. “It doesn't. It's not necromancy if that's what you're thinking. It's something... else. If you're going to defeat them, you'll have to kill both my father and Langsley at the same time.”

“Or I could just kill your father.”

“Bodyguard.”

“He's here right now, and your father's not. So I'm guessing there are some gaps between the time they have together.”

She seems to contemplate his conclusion. “My father is not a weak man. It will be difficult to kill him before Langsley comes to his side.”

“An assassination takes no longer than a second.”

“And how do you plan to get close to him?”

“I don't know yet,” Nadier admitted. “I need more information. More time.”

“Then let's get you back to your cell. You'll have to fight to survive if you want to buy the time you need.”

She held out her hand to pull him up and he took it, rising nose-to-nose with her.

He could smell her scent of snow from that close, her breath that wafted of mint. “Why is there this tension between us?” he asked frankly.

Her head tilted slyly sideways. “I don't know what you mean.”

With her hair brushing his face, she turned away from him and closed the vault that held Langsley. Nadier glanced one last look at his old companion within, wondering if, for a moment, perhaps the glitter in the man's eyes were from the reflection of light, or a glimpse of life left behind.

He followed Trini back down into his underground cell. The layout of the overworld had barely changed over the two centuries, and neither has the clientele diminished. If anything, the number of spectators flooding in to watch the matches seemed more than in his memories. A part of him knows that not everyone here was part of the seedy underbelly of the criminal world. Some were just civilians with peculiar tastes. His stomach churned.

Under her breath, Trini told him, “When you kill them, remember, they are all complicit.”

It was as if she read his mind, and he was more than ever curious about their prior relationship. Despite her denying it, the tension between them, be it romantic or sexual, existed. Whatever their relationship was, she seemed to know him at more than face value. Or at least she apparently thought so.

After returning to his cell's level, he returned to the empty alchemy lab and changed back into his own garb. Trini then left him to store the guard disguise in the northeastern storage room as he made his clockwise direction back to his cell, careful to avoid detection as per before. He met the sea elf again, standing outside his cell door.

“Here you are,” she delivered he home.

Without looking away from her, Nadier knocked two beats of twos against the door. He could hear Ierba grunting from the inside, likely getting off his bed. A moment later, the door lifted and creaked opened. The knight's head popped out the corner.

“Hello, you must be Tri-Ni-Ty. Nice to finally meet you,” Ierba gleefully greeted in his trademark low.

She curtsied. “Pleasure's all mine. And please, call me Trini.”

“Did you two have fun?”

Trini smiled. “Verily.” She then walked past Nadier, patting his shoulder gently as she did so. “Until our next date.”

The dark elf sighed, gesturing for Ierba to stand aside so he could enter. He had not expected to miss his cell until he was back in again. It was one of the few safe haven's in the entire landscape, where he need not worry about being stabbed from a dark corner of his eyes.

“So,” Ierba immediately began, taking his seat on his bed, waving the illusion of Nadier away from the camera. “Did you two...” he made a crude gesture of intercourse with his finger.

“No, you prick,” Nadier replied. Zen finally left his coat and stretched her body across the floor, her snout opened in a yawn. “Let me ask you something. The title, Omniknight, how does one achieve it?”

“That's a bolt from the blue,” Ierba noted. However, it did not stop him from explaining. “The “Omniknight” title is given to a Spellblade that has mastered both light and dark magic to a certain degree. It's rare enough for any one person to be born with two elemental magic circuits, let alone the specific two needed, and even rarer for them to then become masters at it.”

Nadier questioned, “Why light and dark though? Why not the other elements?”

“They are the only two elements that are complimentary. You can manipulate light to create shadows, and generate a beam to cast out the dark. Fire cannot be lit underwater, and wind is useless in a vacuum. Nature requires life, and earth and water need their respective elements in play. The closest alternative is lightning, but it's too wild to control with finesse, and energy lacks the brightness to cast out the shadows.”

“So you're saying it's rare for one to be identified as an Omniknight?”

“There are only two, maybe three a generation. Currently, I'm the only one. What is with all these questions?”

Nadier sat down and leaned his forehead into clasped hands, in thought. “I think I met your predecessor, the reason why I thought I've met you before. Ierba Langsley, an Omniknight trapped here two hundred years ago.”

“Langsley. That's At-Tro-Pos's bodyguard.” The dark elf nodded in confirmation and Ierba sighed. “I guess he must be my counterpart.”

“Counterpart?”

“Each universe has a chance for a version of ourselves. I'm guessing Ierba Langsley is the Tearha version of me, Ierba Lang.”

“I'm getting a headache.”

“You'll get used to it.”

Nadier returned to his thought, attempting to formulate his experience that day into a coherent packet of information to relay to Ierba. Thankfully, the latter apparently understood the process and kept quiet.

“It doesn't make sense,” Nadier finally piped up after a few minutes of silence. “How does my body recognise you from your fighting style? Your life and Langsley's are completely different, yet you fight so similarly that even my muscle memories can pick it up?”

“You have a point,” the knight added. “From my experience, just because we're alternate variations of ourselves, doesn't mean we're all the same. In fact, there's usually very little aside from maybe looks and personalities. Unless... crap.”

“What?”

“I think Langsley have my Soul Arm.”