Still within the expanse of Harpe’s terrifying power and watching Nera on the brink of death, her once vibrant violet eyes glossing over, Allen felt a deep sense of fear that was clearer and more genuine than anything that he had felt before. It was the fear that he would watch the moment when she died while he could do nothing but shiver in terror. Even though he had only known her for only a short time, he had hoped it would have been longer than a measly six days.

He resented his own cowardice whether it was natural or manufactured along with the unfairness of their situation. It seemed to him that people with more power were always the one who trampled on him.

‘Maybe that’s just my lot in life, but I don’t care anymore if I get trampled just as long as she ends up shedding blood as well.’, It was a bitter resolve but he knew it was the only thing allowing him to keep going.

Allen crawled to Nera with his one good arm. He had to say something to her even if there was probably only a very slim chance of any of the two getting out of here. He was terrified but his conviction was able to overcome it, if only by a small margin.

He then spotted Nera’s ribbon baton and grabbed it. He tried to make it transform like it did for Nera but nothing happened.

‘Dammit, I figured that would be the case but what do I now?’

Allen racked his mind until he remembered something. He recalled that strange ability that he had used twice before that allowed him to see into the dreams that were contained within specter stones and then bring out something from them.

Allen calmed his breathing as much as he could and focused as he clutched the ribbon baton tightly in his hand. He had seen the dream inside the Mandrake stone and it was just a garden. There did not seem to be anything useful left there. The only other specter stone he had was the one from the draugr. However, he was not sure if there would be anything in that one either.

‘It’s long shot, but it’s the best one I got. Hidden easter eggs are always in the most unexpected places.’

Allen closed his eyes and peered into the draugr stone concealed in his bandages until he entered a state similar to daydreaming. When he opened his eyes, he appeared in an empty lot in the middle of a factory complex.

He immediately began sprinting around frantically. Nothing stood out to him and he knew was on borrowed time. He only had a moment to look before he was stopped by a familiar voice.

“What are you doing running around like a chicken with its head cut off?”

‘It’s that same voice that I heard in my dream from before.’

“I don’t have time to chit-chat with you! I gotta find something useful and quick. Nera doesn’t have much time left.” Allen continued running around aimlessly.

There was a noticeable pause before the voice spoke to Allen again.

“Take a left at that corner, and three windows down, smash through the glass.”

"You expect me to just listen to some strange voice that I have no clue about?!"

“Do you want to save your friend or not? Because it seems like you don't have many options if you've come here.” The disembodied voice sternly asked with a hint of indignation.

“...yeah.” Allen said in contempt. He decided to follow her directions and leaped straight through the glass window where he hoped there would be something that could get him and Nera out of their dire situation. He found himself in some kind of office that had a large desk and a bunch of miscellaneous equipment.

"What now?"

“Look over there in that steel chest. If you bust open the lock you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

“Roger!” Allen hurried over to the lock and tried ripping it open but realized he did not have access to any mana in this dreamscape. He looked around for anything to break it open and spotted a sledgehammer leaning against the wall, He picked it up and slammed it against the lock, unsealing the chest.

‘Now, hurry and rummage through it.’

He searched through the chest filled with various objects such as work boots, a toolbox, and some weird hi-tech headphones. After a few seconds, he was alerted by the voice that he had found what he was looking for.

‘Really? You think this is gonna help? I might be better off with the sledgehammer.” Allen said with doubt clear in his tone.

“Yes, I’m positive. You can only take one item with you at a time and it has to be that. All you need is some words of encouragement really. That’s just to drown out that awful music.”

“Even so, how do you know so much about my Dream Grasp?” Allen asked, using the self-invented name he had come up with for his peculiar ability.

“Your what? Nevermind, it doesn’t matter right now. Just do what needs to be done. I’m counting on you.”

‘You? What’s that mean?” Allen looked up from what he had retrieved and his eyes widened in surprise. Instead of just empty air in front of him, a vague and ghostly silhouette of a young woman with long hair and an elaborate dress was before him.

“A spirit?”

“If only it was that simple.” She responded calmly and Allen nodded. The answer was not important now and he felt he could trust her. Everything she told him before had turned out to be true.

“Thank you.”

With those words, Allen willed himself back to the physical world. When he opened his eyes again, he found Nera still lying unconscious on the ground. He gripped the item from the dream that was still in his hands. He breathed in a deep breath and promptly used that tool to its fullest extent.

“Wake up, Nera!!!” Allen’s voice was magnified by the megaphone so strongly that it overpowered Harpe’s music enough to shock Nera awake. Harpe was surprised as well. She had been sure that the young man had nothing like the megaphone that was currently in his possession. Alongside her confusion, she was also mildly intrigued. Meanwhile, Allen continued to yell his heart out.

“You haven’t failed anybody! That fear’s only a piece of you, you’re so much more than that! People can’t be ruled by a single thing in this world no matter how strong it is. You’re not just afraid, Nera...you’re amazing!”, Allen shouted out to her, hoping she would get the meaning behind his words.

Nera was stunned silent as she ran those words over in her head. Meanwhile, Harpe had little to no reaction to them.

“Hmph. Do you really think that will be enough for her to defy my power? Hache, shut him up. He’s interrupting my performance.”

The armored warrior had suddenly appeared and proceeded to crush Allen’s megaphone before kicking him far away from where Nera was. He then slammed his ax onto the ground to further divide the two.

As Nera looked at herself in the silver ax that acted as a mirror and reflected. A distant memory floated vividly up from the depths of her mind, called out to by a strong resemblance.

***

It was of her sitting on the porch of a courtyard. The courtyard belonged to a building that was well-kept, albeit slightly rustic. Above the porch, emblazoned on to the inner wall of the building was a silver winged stag, a peryton. The open area itself was filled with grass and a myriad of flowers of various colors. At its center, were a group of children surrounding an elegant girl with long hair playing masterfully on a violin. Her eyes were closed in concentration.

The girl’s mostly black hair had a trail of white that went halfway around the middle of it and she had bright golden eyes that showed occasionally when she would open them to smile at her captivated onlookers who looked to her as if she was their queen.

Nera was a young girl as well at this time with only small wisps of white in her hair. She wore a plain gray dress with a white board hung over her shoulders. She looked wistfully out at the crowd of children listening to music she was sure was amazing based off the looks on their faces.

However, she could not confirm for herself since her ears lacked hearing. It was from an accident that she could not even remember, from a time before she had come to this place.

She watched melancholically as all she could do was imagine how beautiful the music was. She envied all the children there, especially the one playing it. This spectacle in front of her reminded her of all things her deafness made it seem like she was incapable of.

While she was dwelling in these thoughts, a single finger tapped gently on her shoulder. She looked up to see a red haired girl with a small tuft of white in the front of hair and warm brown eyes. Her head was adorned by a floral wreath of vibrant flowers. She waved to Nera in greeting

The girl followed this up by putting both her hands together in an open grip with her thumbs pointing toward her then rotating them outward and pointing towards Nera in order to sign, “How are you?”

Nera responded by placing the back of her left hand flatly on the palm of her other hand to sign, “Good.” This was contrary to the somber expression on her face which the red-haired girl easily noticed.

She had her hand form a “y” shape and tapped it to her chin to sign, “Wrong.” with a sour expression. She was upset at Nera’s constant habit of lying about how she was feeling.

Her hands were all over the place as she struggled to find the correct signs to express what she wanted to say. She had been practicing for a few months now but still had not gotten a great grasp of sign language.

Ultimately, it was by using the whiteboard hanging from Nera’s neck along with the marker she kept on her that the red-haired girl was eventually able to get Nera to communicate that she felt lesser than all the others that could hear.

“I’m just deaf.”, was the last thing she wrote.

At this, the red-haired girl gasped hysterically in bewilderment which startled Nera and she began frantically writing on Nera’s whiteboard, wiping her words off with her hand whenever she ran out of room.

“What do you mean!? You’re sooo good at so many, many things.”

“You always catch a bunch of fireflies at night.”

“You’re great at helping Ms. Doe cook food for all of us.”

“The mud castles you make are always the coolest.”

“And you’re the one who made this awesome thing for me.”, she proudly gestured to the circlet of flowers she wore like a tiara.

Nera momentarily froze up in embarrassment at the high amounts of praise but the red-haired girl enthusiastically slapped her hands on Nera’s shoulders and stared directly in her eyes. When Nera tried to avert the other girl’s piercing gaze, she ended up looking down and seeing what she had left on the whiteboard for Nera to read.

“Nera, you’re not just deaf, you’re amazing!”

Nera couldn’t help but be overwhelmed with joy. For the first time since she can remember, she felt like despite all the weakness she had that made her feel less than ordinary, she was actually someone “extraordinary”.

***

‘Just like then, I was missing the whole picture. I’m not just afraid..I’m not just afraid. He’s right, I'm absolutely furious! I’m totally disgusted by this woman and I’m completely confident that there’s no way in hell I’m going to die here groveling at her feet! Not when there’s people that believe in me!’

Nera mustered all of her seething emotions and abated her fear. This gave her a brief respite to think with a clear mind. She took a deep breath and realized what her next steps should be.

“Sound off.”, Nera spoke this word and her world turned quiet. This was how she deactivated her mechanical ears’ hearing functions. With this, she could no longer hear Harpe’s hypnotic music and was freed from its influence just like she expected. Nera had figured there had to have been a reason why she kept playing it.

Harpe walked up to her with an enthused look on her face, probably gloating something nonsensical about her not being able to hear Nera’s last words. Nera waited for the right moment and sprung up from the ground so fast that she was able to move out of the musical staves around her. She had noticed that they lagged behind before.

“Catch!” On one knee, Allen threw Nera’s baton to her.

With Harpe looking on in shock, Nera grabbed the baton in the air and instantly morphed it into a scythe as she rushed forward. Immediately, Harpe and Hache tried to stop her, Harpe with an emerald stave and Hache with a swing of his axe. Their shouts of dismay were unheard by Nera as she dodged their attacks.

Nera charged straight at Harpe, the source of the madness. Just as she was in reach, an emerald stave came from the side and pushed her scythe out of the way but Nera was not fazed at all. The scythe was simply a bluff after all.

She was not going to give Harpe time to do anything else as she lunged at the Crafter. Nera was now less than a meter away from Harpe and even without being able to hear her voice, could tell she was in complete fear from her expression.

In a single moment, she raised her other hand from the scythe and impaled Harpe straight through the chest.

***

From the ground, Allen gasped in shock as Nera’s fist ran through Harpe’s body. Even with his vision blurred from the beating he received earlier, this scene was starkly vivid to him.

At the same time, Harpe was staring in horror at her at the fatal blow that had struck her before noiselessly uttering something that no one else could hear. Instantly, the emerald canopy that enclosed them was enveloped in a bright flash of light.

Allen shielded his eyes from the brilliant radiance. When he uncovered them, they were back in the expanse they had been in previously, and it was currently on the verge of breaking apart almost completely, with everything in the area disintegrating into a dark haze to reveal the true image of the landscape.

‘It looks like this place is coming to an end…”, Allen could not help but look wistfully at his surroundings as the trees crumbled away and the iron items broke apart into nothingness. If specters are a manifestation of mankind’s inner psyche then witnessing the dissipation of an expanse formed by them was comparable to waking up from a dream.

He quickly turned his gaze to the center of the clearing where Nera and Harpe were. He could sense Harpe’s aura dwindling rapidly. Allen figured that mana must give some kind of Crafter’s enhanced vitality. It was probably the only thing keeping her conscious. There was barely any mana left in her body and the red musical staves around Hache's limbs faded away.

‘Hopefully, this nightmare is ending soon as well.’

A shrill cry ran out from Harpe causing flocks of birds to rise up from the reclaimed sections of the forest. She glowered at Nera with rage and fear in her eyes but had no strength left in her body to fight or flee.

Nera looked on emotionlessly as she felt Harpe’s life steadily fade away. However, she suddenly bounded back as Hache’s large axe came swinging down to cut her arm in two. As she leapt from Harpe and retracted her hand, a spew of blood came out from the wound, staining the grass dark red.

Harpe vomited some blood herself and nearly collapsed on the spot but Hache was able to catch her before she was able to. Nera then fluidly brought both of her hands to her ears to push somewhere behind them then said, “Sound on.”

This allowed her to be able to hear her surroundings again.

A few meters away now, Nera still held an uncaring expression as she stared down Hache who was fiercely guarding Harpe. Harpe could do nothing but cling on to him desperately for support.

“Dammit, this isn’t supposed to happen to someone like me!”, Harpe shouted vehemently at Nera. Regardless of being able to hear her again now, Nera was still unfazed by Harpe.

“Don’t you dare look down on me with those damned eyes! You’re just a lowly lab rat! I was the one chosen by Madame Harpe to carry out her will! I was the one she entrusted her power to! I am...who am I?”, Harpe suddenly seemed confused and clutched her face tightly as she began muttering hysterically to herself. The spiral inside of her eyes faded into normal pupils and the emerald color of her eyes shifted to a deep blue.

“Madame Harpe?”, Nera let out, wondering what was going on with the gray-haired woman.

“Wait, aren’t you supposed to be Harpe!?”, Allen shouted as he got up on one knee. He was just bewildered as Nera was. Harpe continued to shout frantically as Hache held on to her to keep her from falling. Even through his armored helmet, he seemed to be unnerved as well as by the display.

“Who am I? What’s going on Madame Harpe? You told me I would never have to feel fear or pain again if I became Madame Harpe. You promised me that. You told me I would be free from everything that caused me strife so then why...why am I hurting so much right now!?” Please, answer me!!!”

Allen and Nera stared on in confusion is she muttered to herself in hysteria than suddenly a bright flash of emerald light burst from her. Allen was in shock as he noticed Harpe’s aura start to swell a considerable amount and a pillar of mana erupting from her into the air.

But Allen was not intimidated, he had seen Harpe be overcome and he was tired of cowering in fear. It did not matter how much stronger she was, how many times she regained her strength, nor if it was unreasonable to fight her. He was not going to let her hurt Nera or him again. With barely any power left in the mandrake’s specter stone, Allen reached for the draugr’s crystal that he had recently obtained.

‘I’m sure this was the same way Osvald’s uncle must have felt. Wanting to protect something even if the odds were against him. That sometimes there's value in the struggle itself.’, Allen thought as he stood up to his feet.

Harpe’s eyes shifted to their previous emerald color and her irises once again took the form of spirals. She then threw her hands out jubilantly and started cackling at the sky

“I see it clearly now. So that’s your answer! I still have a role to play after all! Your benevolence is overwhelming!”, Harpe shouted without a trace of meekness nor confusion. She had returned to how Allen and Nera were used to seeing her.

However, Nera did not let this stop her from trying to put Harpe out of action. She charged directly at Harpe while she was too busy basking in her own power to be cautious of any danger around her. But Nera was too focused on Harp to notice in time as an axe swing came down on her from Hache. She stopped in her tracks for split-second to dodge but it was going to be too late.

In that brief moment, the blade of the axe was blocked before it could strike it’s target. Allen had used his own arm to shield Nera from the attack. The speed at which he had intercepting was not the only thing that surprised everyone around him but also the appearance his limb now took. It resembled a jet black version of the draugr’s arm itself.

Hache let out a muffled grunt as he tried to overpower Allen but the younger man would not budge. The axe was embedded in the rocky exterior covering his arm but it did not reach his skin. He then forcibly pushed the bladed weapon off of him. Without being boosted up by Harpe’s magic, the strength difference was marginal enough for Allen to overcome in that moment.

“It’s my turn to say it now. I’m not letting you go any further than this, Hache.”, Allen stated resolutely. He then turned to the emerald-eyed Crafter a few meters away from them.

“And you Harpe, I don’t care what twisted vendetta you have against this city. If your goal is to cause suffering to those around me, then mine is to make sure that it stays exactly what it should be, nothing but a dream.”

As Allen made this declaration, the draugr’s armor that covered his limb began to crack all over starting from where the silver axe had struck it. The rocky pieces gradually fell off his arm and left it bare, with his bandages and jacket sleeve having been blown apart from the materialization of the specter’s visage. The crimson scars on his right arm were now plain for them all to see.

“Spectral manifestation. So it’s progressed that far already.”, Harpe spoke ominously as she locked eyes with Allen.

“Looks like your days as a human are numbered, extra.”

Even if he had not shown it outwardly, Allen had been surprised at well at the specter’s arm seemingly materializing around his arm and worried about what it could mean for how long he had before miasmal corruption took over his entire body and turned his whole being into a specter.

“No, he's not. We’re going to find a way to solve our curses, his and mine. If you two keep getting in our way, we’ll defeat you until you leave us alone..or there’s nothing left of you at all.”

“Hmph, don’t get in over you-”, Harpe was interrupted by another gush of blood coming from her mouth that she failed to keep in with one of her hands. Her overflowing aura was allowing her to move better than she was before but was not enough to heal her extremely severe wound.

“Ugh, I guess I'll lower the curtains for now. I think you two may be the very first humans I’ve especially despised in a long time.”, She then smiled a grotesquely wide grin with red-stained teeth.

“To have resisted this far has only prolonged and worsened you both’s inevitable downfall at her hands. Time and time again, you have rejected Madame Harpe’s merciful generosity of quick and painless deaths. You’ll come to regret that soon.”, Hache followed.

“Heh, you don’t usually talk this much toy soldier. You must feel really upset under all that stoic bullshit you’re talking.”, Allen chided. He noticed Hache clench his hand around his axe before untightening it.

“Anger? Rage? Those things are not something a sentry like me needs to possess. Even if I did have them, such fury would not be something I would spare for a mere pebble on the side of the road.”, Hache stated this in a mostly monotonous voice but Allen sense a small tinge of irritation in it that had slipped through.

“Shouldn’t you two be scramming already, or should we continue? We both know who the first one who’s going to fall is. Unsurprisingly, it’s the one with the gaping hole in their chest.”, Nera said as she stared down the two enemies in front of her. Harpe looked back gleefully before preparing to use her instrument again. Allen and Nera both tensed up at this.

“Hmm, yeah you’re right, we’ll be nice enough to leave you with a parting gift though.”, with this, she strummed her lyre and instantly they heard a loud screech fill the air. Then, the sun was blocked out by something overhead. The two looked up to see a massive bird-like specter in the sky start to descend and they hastily blocked the volley of feathers that proceeded to be fired out from its wings. Fortunately, these projectiles were as weak as paintballs.

When the rain of feathers let up, Harpe and Hache were already on the back of the winged specter. Allen took note of the monster also possessing emerald eyes with spirals inside of them. He then watched as Harpe waved farewell to them.

“Until we meet next you insufferable brats, I promise it’ll be even more excruciating for you then it was this time and I will get what I want from that girl.”

After this last warning, the spectral bird took off into the sky and left them in the clearing of the dissolving expanse.

***

When they were sure it was safe, they immediately went to where Osvald was left and Allen was horrified as he saw in terrible state he was in. The blood from his wounds was pouring out profusely, and his skin was unnervingly pale.

"It can't be.. Is he-"

"Don't worry, he's gonna make it out of this. I can still hear his heartbeat.", Nera assured as she was already flipping her phone out and dialing a number on it.

Allen breathed a sigh of relief and fell down to his knees. He looked closely at Osvald and could just barely discern minuscule movements of the man's chest raising up and down.

“That's great...that's amazing, Nera.", Allen’s voice was unsteady with overwhelming emotion. The toil of the battle, the shock of the spectral manifestation that appeared on his arm, and the joy of knowing that Osvald was still alive.

'Finally, this nightmare is over.', he thought to himself as Nera's call went through. She addressed whoever she was on the phone with in an intensely serious tone.

"Hello, please send an ambulance to my location. There's a man here who is critically injured. Please, be quick."