“You will be responsible for the lives of others. It will be your job to make the hard decisions at times. All I ask of you, my daughter, is to do your best.”

When the light faded from my eyes, I was within what appeared to be a small cove, gently glowing crystals dotting my surroundings as my boots sank into what looked like soft silt-like sand. I didn’t let the surroundings lull me into a false sense of security, my metal mana particles at the ready, invisible to the naked eye in their pure mana state.

“Iris?”

I looked to my right, where the vice-captain of Shangsattva stood, arms crossed as she looked around in cautious curiosity.

“Where are the others?” She asked me after a moment.

“That,” Checking for any hidden coves before answering the woman. “-is currently unknown. It would appear we were separated at the very least.”

“But we’ve never been separated in all the teleports before?”

“We cannot know if that white light is teleportation, or space itself is reforming around us. As for never being separated, that isn’t entirely correct.”

I felt my gut clench, the sight of an illuminated blade of light crashing down upon a foe that I had no hope of defeating seared into my mind.

“Zero was separated from us every single time before. It shouldn’t be surprising that we’ve been separated as well.”

“Hmm.” I saw her leathery forehead crease as she looked up at the ceiling of the cove. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

“What do you mean?” I questioned how she had phrased the thought resonating with me for uncomfortable reasons.

“You saw what he did there.” She waved about, forehead and nose crinkled. “How much do any of us really know about him? He was a Silver adventurer, was he not? So how did he end up a part of this? But that isn’t what a Silver does.”

I found myself frowning as well. I wouldn’t deny that I’d had similar thoughts about the young man ever since I’d met him, his magic unusual to the degree that seemed…. Different, even for Kin magic.

But that display, the blade of light, the power he harnessed…

“We would have all died if not for him,” I affirmed, but even to my ears, the words sounded weak, as if I struggled to believe them myself. “For now, we have more pressing concerns. Where are we?”

“You don’t need decades of experience to see we’re in a cave.” The woman said shortly, that much obvious.

“Well, I would like to be sure. With few of us left, we can’t afford to make stupid rookie mistakes like being too sure of ourselves.”

The woman grumbled once, but soon we were sifting through the small cove, looking for anything of note.

The sand was sand.

The rock I nudged with my foot was, in fact, rock.

The water was, unsurprisingly, ordinary water.

Perhaps the strangest thing about the small cave was the crystals that dotted throughout it, slightly luminous so that we had a soft, gentle glow to operate by. I’d never seen crystals like them before, but I knew better than to touch things I had no knowledge of.

I’ve been too relaxed.

The thought stung because it was true. I’d operated like this dungeon was expected by any means. I thought that by recognizing the danger, understanding what that meant and working together as a cohesive unit and keeping a level head, we could challenge the dungeon and come out the victors to the other side.

How wrong I’d been. There had been more than forty of us to start.

Now, we were down to eight.

Foolish. I was foolish, arrogant, and naïve.

I was responsible for considering everyone else’s lives and making the hard decisions if need be.

But I’d failed. If it hadn’t been for… him, we would have never even made it past the first trial.

Stop. Resentment won’t get you anywhere.

We continued to inspect the area, but after minutes of turning up nothing, we finally stopped.

“There’s nothing.” The hardened woman, Intilda, shook her head.

“Then I’m guessing it’s trying to get us to go through there.”

We both looked toward the water, where the frigid pond bled into an underground stream, gently flowing who knew where.

“You believe we should go through?”

I frowned, thinking about it, before finally sighing.

“I doubt we have another option. If the dungeon wants us to go through there, then we must. Even if we tried to open a new path, worst case scenario, it would close it back up with us inside.”

“If you stay next to me, I can use my scorz to keep us warm as we travel through the stream.” Intilda raised her hand, a small flame dancing upon her fingertips with a single quick murmured word.

“No need.” I shook my head. Waving my hand, not because I had to but instead, to make it clear I would take care of it, from all around me, a cloud of metallic-looking haze popped into existence. “No point in forcing you to use your mana.”

The vice-captain of Shangsattva-

Captain. I mentally corrected myself. Gramm was dead and gone.

-nodded, the flame put out instantly.

With only an ounce of concentration, the metal particles flickered about, shaping themselves into a round-bottomed vessel and floating atop the water.

“Do we need a paddle or something?”

“No.” I shook my head once more. “Even though it looks like a solid object, it’s still just a concentrated cloud of my metal mana. On its own, it wouldn’t be enough to carry us, but supported by floating on water, it will bring us downstream.”

“What about your mana supply?”

I half-smiled, never answering. Few understood how my magic worked, and explaining it to them wouldn’t change anything.

Arrogant.

The smile faltered as I found the word bouncing around my mind.

“My affinity for earth and fire means I can utilize them to form metal mana. I then use a Kin magic that lets me manipulate particles to manipulate the metal mana in a way that means other than the initial fusion of earth and fire mana, I expend little to no mana whatsoever.”

The woman stared at me as if surprised I’d revealed my secret so candidly, but if we wanted to succeed, I needed to give those around me all the tools and knowledge I could.

Jerking my head over at the craft, I motioned for Intilda to board it, following a second after. Within moments we were off, the metal craft silently ferrying us through the darkness of the river tunnel.

For what felt like ages, we glided across the water, seconds to minutes, minutes to hours, until at last, from above, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

“Ready yourself,” I whispered to Intilda, a tiny flare of light appearing from her fingertips as she manifested fire.

While outwardly, I didn’t appear to do anything differently, I drew mana from my core, a shiny silver sphere to my mind’s eye, my core reflexively reshaping the pure mana into elemental aspects before fusing them together, supplying me with more metal mana to draw upon if need be.

Let’s see what we’ve gotten ourselves into now.

Emerging from the tunnel exit, I suppressed a gasp of surprise.

We were floating upon what could only be described as a natural open-air aqueduct that flowed high above an endless void of darkness beneath us. The area we had entered was massive, like an arena, with three other floating aqueducts at evenly spaced intervals, all leading to what looked to be a platform in the center of the room, suspended above the endless void. There was only a small crevice between where the aqueduct ended and the platform began. The aqueduct’s water cascaded freely into a miniature waterfall that tumbled into the void far below. The crevice was small enough that even though one misstep would send one falling into nothingness, I was relatively unworried about the possibility. Standing tall at the center of the quaint floating island was an obelisk, the largest one we had encountered to date. Next to the obelisk, to my sudden relief, were two familiar figures. The first was from adventurer Scarlet’s party, Thoron, and the next was a member of Shangsattva, Amir. Intilda, seeing the man, let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m glad to see I’m not the last of us.” She murmured to herself, which I pretended to ignore.

I could understand the feeling. If one had to choose who lived or died, you would choose those you knew already; it was only natural.

Intilda’s sigh of relief was short-lived, the quiet inhale turning sharp as she sucked in a breath before tapping me on the shoulder.

“Look up.”

I’d been so preoccupied with looking down at the dark void, perhaps the void beneath our very world, that I never bothered to look up.

And when I finally did, the wind was sucked out from me, my eyes widening in awe.

Above us was a night sky, but it was unlike how I’d ever seen it before, the celestial bodies looking as if floating just out of reach. The night sky was fragmented as if some great God had sliced the heavens apart before stitching them back together in a more pleasing pattern; the sky split into four quadrants. In one, what was clearly our sun hung in the night sky, yet somehow there was no daylight. In the second quadrant, directly above where we were emerging, was what looked to be a dense nebula of stars, a colorful dust cloud that reminded my inner child of cotton candy. The third quadrant was dominated by a large silverly celestial body, what looked to be our main moon if it had been dragged just outside our planet’s doorstep.

As for the last quadrant, it was unlike any other patches of sky, completely empty, devoid of anything whatsoever, a glimpse of the future when even the last star had winked out of existence, leaving nothing behind but the cold dark void.

“It’s like some massive observatory,” I whispered. I’d heard of such places before, in the far north of Haerasong, there was a famous observatory that was used to glean insight from the heavens above, but I’d taken little interest in them myself, my job much more centered on the ground beneath my feet than the wanderlust of what lay beyond the sky above.

We neared the end of the floating aqueduct, and as we did, the metal craft beneath us shifted, reforming into a small bridge between the end of the channel and the floating island, bridging the space so that there was no possibility of falling.

“Iris, vice cap, err, captain Intilda!” Amir waved at us as we stepped upon the rocky floating island.

“Glad to see you two made it here okay.” I nodded to them, about to approach them before Thoron stuck his hand out.

“Don’t bother.”

“Excuse me?”

“Apologies, I didn’t mean it like that. We’ve already attempted to walk around this island. We’ve been here for around an hour already. As it turns out, this island, platform… thing, has invisible walls of some sort.”

I frowned, looking across from them to our opposing side. Intilda seeing my expression, walked over, a hand outstretched as she cautiously checked for any invisible barriers.

Sure enough, after only going a few paces, she stopped, looking back at me, her hand pressed flat against something or nothing at all.

“Seems like it’s not just their side of the platform with them.”

“Then we can reasonably assume this island is split into four.” I pointed at each of the floating channels that had ferried us here. “One for each quadrant.”

“Then, do you think-”

Before Thoron could finish his thoughts, from the third tunnel beneath the quadrant of the empty void, a miniature iceberg floated out, two more figures perched upon it, Lela, another adventurer from Shangsattva, and Scarlet, who, as they drew nearer, I noticed had sunken cheeks, her complexation pale.

At the very least, she was awake.

And then there were two.

Lela waved toward us, and after returning the gesture, we waited for them to fully reach the island, a small hop from the miniature iceberg, and they were upon the stable ground.

As stable as an island floating above the void could ever possibly be.

“Well, we can assume who is likely to come down that last river.” Intilda looked at me as if gauging my reaction.

“Yes, by process of elimination, we can determine Elsmere should be in that direction as well as… Zero.”

The six of us waited, passing the time by catching each other up with the island’s situation and where we had each come from. As it had turned out, we had all found ourselves in nearly identical coves, lit by the same strange glowing crystals.

“So, what do you think will go wrong this time?” Lela pointed at the obelisk. “Considering what it took to get through the last two areas.”

“Hopefully, nothing,” I added, eyeing the obelisk.

“C’mon, I know you’re the expedition leader, and keeping morale high is part of the duty, but at this point, you don’t have to fake it for any of us.” Amir shook his head as if he found what I was doing distasteful.

“No,” Thoron spoke up, looking at Amir. “I don’t think she is doing it for that reason.”

I should see about trying to recruit him to our party after this. Or, rather, having him join and reestablish the party, as we no longer have the numbers to be officially recognized as a party in the first place anymore.

Ignoring the potential ramifications of the two top gold parties being stripped of members to the point that we wouldn’t even be considered official parties anymore, I answered them with what was on my mind.

“You’re correct. I didn’t say such just to attempt to ‘uplift morale’; even if I wanted to, I doubt any of you would appreciate such performative measures.”

No one spoke up, but I saw a few faint nods.

“Now, I don’t want any of you to let your guards down, far from it, but something about this place feels different. Not everything about a dungeon was endless battles against monsters or magical beasts. From what I know, they often were broken up with tests of wit or puzzles that had to be solved.”

“So you’re saying-” Lela pointed up. “This is some sort of puzzle?”

“Perhaps. For now, we should wait.” I crossed my arms, eyeing the fourth and final quadrant, the channel flowing out from the cave entrance in the stone wall had yet to ferry out the last two remaining members of our group.

“They’ll be here,” Scarlet spoke up for the first time, the effort seeming to exhaust her, her head hanging low after.

She’s another strange one.

Eating magic, a fire that didn’t burn like a normal fire.

Even with her own abnormalities, it wasn’t enough to erase the remorse I felt for her. In every situation we’d found ourselves so far, she had been forced to push herself into mana exhaustion, and every time she seemed a little bit worse for wear. I couldn’t help but wonder if we continued at this rate if she would expire not from a monster tearing at her throat but from her own magic burning through her life force.

Lost in thought, I was staring at the ceiling when a voice reached me.

“…do you think?”

I looked around, caught off guard.

“Iris?”

“Hmm?” I felt a moment fluster before regaining my composure, my face never revealing my inward reaction.

“Never show weakness. Stoicism is what those looking up to you for direction wish to see.”

“We asked you if you think they’re okay?”

“Elsmere and Zero?”

“Yes.”

I nodded with no hesitation.

“If there is anyone here who I believe is okay, it would be those two.”

After all, he may be the root of our problems in the first place.

I ignored the thought, nothing more than my anxiety creeping up on me and lashing out where it could.

Or so I tried to convince myself.

As if on command, from the corner of my eye, I saw something appeared floating out upon the final aqueduct, a raft made entirely of stone.

Elsmere. I smiled, recognizing her handiwork. She hadn’t been with us long, but she had proven valuable and trustworthy.

And of course… Zero.

Last I had seen of him, the young man had been burning up with the worst fever I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t deny a dark part of me wondered if he wouldn’t expire then and there. Yet there he was, appearing no worse for wear. As they exited the dark tunnel, the two looked around in awe at the vista that was the fragmented sky and endless void below. Seconds passed before they finally noticed the rest of us gathered, waving frantically toward our now considerably smaller group.

If the sight of him up and about wasn’t enough to confirm it, the energy of his wave and expressive reaction confirmed his fever had broken.

Why am I not surprised?

Reaching the end of their aqueduct, the two of them stepped over the small gap with little issue.

“Sorry for the delay.” Rook bowed his head low. “Elsmere tells me I struggled with a fever for some time.”

“Just happy to see you in one piece, Zero.” Thoron, Scarlet, and Amir were smiling at the man, visibly relaxing at the sight of him. I had expected it from Scarlet; from what I’d put together, they had once been friends, but the familiarity and fondness that the other two showed him surprised me.

Almost as if they view him as some sort of savior.

Even Elsmere looked at the man with a face I hadn’t seen from her before, like underlying awe laced her interactions with him.

They’re getting too comfortable around him.

The thought surprised me. I had questions about him, but it was almost as if…

As if you think of him more like a monster than a man.

I wanted to deny my thoughts, but it was becoming harder and harder. I’d seen what he had done.

What if he’s responsible for this?

I shook my head, but even as I did, there was a quiet voice at the back of my head, warning me against him.

“So, what have we missed?” Zero questioned, hands on his hips as he looked at the obelisk. “That is one big…. whatever.”

“We think this is some sort of puzzle,” Thoron answered him, gesturing around. “But we’re not all too sure what the puzzle- does anyone else here that?”

I stopped what I was doing, which wasn’t much, to listen in. At first, I heard nothing more than the sound of cascading water, but as I continued to listen, it was as if I could make out a faint whisper.

“What is that?” Lela looked around, concern on her face, hands at the ready should she need to conjure magic.

“It sounds like… a voice?” Zero looked around, checking if anyone else seemed to hear it.

“I hear it.” This time it was Amir who spoke up.

Unable to hear what they could, I closed my eyes, focusing on my sense of hearing alone.

I alone stand in the heavens, and from I there is one, and from one there is wisdom.

“A riddle.” Scarlet quietly exhaled.

“She’s right, I think.” Lela nodded. “That sounds like a riddle of some sort.”

“I alone stand in the heavens, and from I there is one, and from one there is wisdom?” Zero recited the strangely whispering words, coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. “Does anyone know what that means?”

“Honestly, I was hoping you might have an idea.” Elsmere shook her head, scratching at her chin.

“I’m not really the scholarly sort.” He huffed with a quiet half-laugh. “At the very least, it sounds like it’s got something to do with that.”

He pointed straight up to the strange night sky above us.

“Oh.” Thoron jumped, thumping his fist against the open palm of his opposite hand. “Don’t you see?”

When no one responded, he shook his head before pointing to each quadrant.

“I think that’s why we were split up. Look, there you have the sun.” He pointed at the sky hanging directly above the quadrant where Intilda and I stood. “Above us, the moon, there, the stars, and finally that… void, I guess? Those are the potential answers, I bet.”

I couldn’t help but be impressed, the man brighter than I had given him credit for.

“This riddle then, how do we answer it?” Elsmere questioned him from her side.

“Hmm” He frowned, holding his chin before he flicked a finger forward, toward the obelisk. “My best guess is that we touch the obelisk from the corresponding side, which would explain why this island is split by invisible walls.”

“What do you think, Zero?” Amir turned to look at the young man, several others looking at him for guidance.

Why? He’s only a silver. Why are they trusting his judgment so much?

I feared what would happen if they placed too much faith in the hands of one so inexperienced that he would lead them to their demise, but before I could say anything, he shrugged.

“I think it’s as good an idea as any other. Iris?”

The attention turned to me, their gazes watching me, judging me as the leader.

He does it on purpose. The voice quietly whispered to me, unable to shake my gnawing doubts.

“I suppose. But we should be sure to-”

But they had already stopped paying attention to me, conversing with each other after hearing my agreement.

“If the options are between the stars, the void, the sun, and the moon, obviously the answer should be the sun, right? ‘I alone stand in the universe’ and ‘from one there is wisdom’ should obviously point to the sun. After all, during daylight hours, people can read and learn.” Elsmere answered with a certain level of assuredness

“No,” Thoron spoke again, cutting off the chatter, apparently the de-facto expert. “I think it’s the moon.”

“The moon?” Elsmere looked at him as if he were crazy, but he held up a finger as if telling us to wait.

“Let me explain. The question, it isn’t a question of the heavens.”

“Come again?” Intilda tilted her head at him, just as lost as the rest of us.

“It’s not a question of philosophy. It’s an anagram. You notice how so much focus was put on the idea of ‘one’ ?”

Elsmere, the leading voice in support of the sun theory, nodded.

“Well, with the question being so subjective, it’s obvious it isn’t about the question but the clue within. One is stated repeatedly, so I got to thinking, what is important about one? That’s when it hit me. What’s another word for one?”

“Single?” Amir offered.

Thoron shook his head, smiling before pointing overhead. “Mono.”

“Moon,” I whispered as the answer clicked into place.

“Exactly.”

“What if you’re wrong?” Elsmere was chewing on her lip, like any of us, against the thought of losing anyone else.

“Well, I guess I won’t have any way to know other than by finding out.” He said confidently, and without us being able to do anything, he walked up to the obelisk, pressing a hand against it.

For a moment, nothing happened until it flashed; the quadrant in which Thoron and Amir were standing was bathed in a blinding white light, forcing us to avert our eyes.

Only when the light dimmed and I looked back did I see that Thoron and Amir were gone.

“You think that was the right answer?” Lela questioned nervously.

“Seems like it.” Zero gestured toward the obelisk. “That’s the same light we’ve seen every time we’ve been moved.”

A grinding rumble caught our attention as hands were raised and weapons were drawn. The caution proved for naught, as from the ground within each section around the obelisk, stone steps began to form, twisting to spiral around the obelisk a third up before creating a second stone platform.

“You think-” Intilda looked toward me, but it wasn’t I that answered.

“We need to go up,” Zero said as if it were obvious.

No questions, no comments. The moment he said it, Scarlet, Lela, and the rest proceeded up the stone steps.

Why?

I had come to the same conclusion, but why had I felt the need to pause?

As if I were deferring to the amateur adventurer for the final say.

Looking to avoid such thoughts, I turned my attention to the stone steps, quickly climbing them as they twisted around the obelisk. Taking them two at a time, I noticed something particular. Reaching the second platform, our groups of two had been rearranged at some point. I stood next to Scarlet, Intilda with Elsmere, and Zero found himself next to Lela.

“Well, I’m not sure I should even question it.” Elsmere looked around, saying what had been on my mind. “So now what?”

“Another riddle, I would assume.” I cut in, speaking up before Zero had the chance, reaffirming my leadership position.

I can’t let them get themselves killed by trusting someone like him so much.

The group seemed to find the thought reasonable, so we waited for the familiar sound of the eerie whispered riddled.

What we heard instead was clearly no riddle.

It was the sound of rock and stone crumbling.

Looking out, the aqueducts we had traveled upon were crumbling, the stone forming them collapsing into the void below, the water now spilling from the cave exits like four identical waterfalls.

The aqueducts weren’t the only things that crumbled. Beneath us, I heard the sound of shifting earth and cracking stone. Poking my head over the edge, I peered below.

There was nothing beneath us, the first stone platform gone.

There was no turning back now.

“Iris? What happened?”

“The stone beneath us crumbled away.”

“Meaning all that’s between us and the void is this platform?” Zero looked to the ground uncomfortably before Scarlet spoke up, her voice still weaker than when I’d first met her.

“That was the case earlier, you do realize?”

“Oh. Right.” He looked away sheepishly, embarrassed.

This is the person they put too much of their trust in.

Stop it. I chided my subconscious, trying to pay it less attention.

Be wary. It reminded me unwilling to be silenced without one final say.

Thankfully for my own sanity, after the sound of crumbling stone had settled and the relative peace of earlier returned, the sound of whispers filled our ears once more.

I give those that scorn a shoulder of cold.

“You all get that?” Elsmere was looking around, her face written with confusion.

“Think so.” Lela nodded.

“Yes,” I added, putting my voice out there.

“Well, anyone got any bright ideas?” Zero looked about the group, his own face blank of ideas.

“Considering the last question wasn’t about the question itself, do you think this follows that same trend?” Elsmere frowned for a moment. “Actually, scratch that. I can’t think of any immediate connections with the words here in some sort of wordplay.”

“I think I got it.” This time, Lela seemed to have come up with something, her folded arms and pensive face nodding slowly. “What if this one is more… literal? When you scorn something, you avoid it. So, maybe it’s not like, an implication but a literal meaning. If you avoid this, you receive the cold shoulder, as in literally cold.”

She looked up once to the quadrant where Intilda and Elsmere stood beneath.

“It’s the sun.” She said with confidence.

Elsmere wasted no time. Headstrong as she was, she instantly walked over to the obelisk and pressed her palm against it.

Unlike with Thoron and Amir, the light wasn’t instant, and for a moment, I feared she had been wrong, but just as I was about to say something, I was suddenly blinded by the light.

Waiting for it to die down, the pair of Elsmere and Intilda were gone.

“And then there was four,” I whispered.

As with before, the sound of rumbling earth preceded the stone steps appearing, winding another third of the way up the obelisk until it leveled out into another new platform. The remaining four of us looked between one another before quickly making our way up the stairs with a single nod.

As with before, the space around us seemed to disobey conventional physics; pairs who had been walking next to each other were now separated and rearranged. Standing next to me was Zero, and directly across from us was Lela and Scarlet.

“You think-?” Zero had been in the process of asking something when from beneath us, the sound of crumbling stone was heard, the platform and stairs falling into the void. “-right, never mind.”

When no one spoke, the riddle whispered as if rewarding us for our silence.

From beyond, they watch, but from within they preside, doth do recognize the Great Mother’s heart.

“I’ve got nothing.” Lela laid her palms out flat with a shrug.

“Does anyone know what a ‘Great mother’ is?” Zero first looked at me, but when I shook my head in denial, he was treated to the same response from Scarlet and Lela.

“Right, so it’s fifty-fifty.” Zero sighed, staring overhead. “We’ve got stars, and it looks like you two have void.”

As I stared straight overhead, the four of us were silent for a moment.

You’ll have to make the hard decisions, is that right?

Sure of what I had to do, I looked straight ahead at Lela and Scarlet, making sure they heard what I was about to say.

“You need to touch the obelisk.”

“But what if-”

I swept a hand through the air, silencing Lela, who had been about to protest.

“The way I see it, if this is fifty-fifty, it should be you who press the obelisk. There is a chance that if we are wrong, something bad will happen to us alone. If we are right, well, then great.”

“Sure, we have better odds,” Lela argued, her face set. “But we shouldn’t be trying to play odds like that. We’ve already lost so many-”

“That’s exactly why.” I once more interrupted her. “That’s why it must be us. As expedition leader, I must take this risk.”

Lela went from looking at me to looking at Zero, chewing the concern over.

“For what it’s worth,” Zero spoke up. “I agree with Iris.”

Lela still appeared to be mulling it over, but to my surprise, Scarlet suddenly stepped forward, pressing her palm against the obelisk before looking directly at Zero.

“You better come after us, okay?”

And then, as with every single time before, I was blinded by a white light, and when it finally faded, the duo had vanished.

“I guess it’s just us.” Zero smiled at me; something about how he did it angered me.

His fault. My inner voice whispered.

“Let’s just get a move on.”

The stone shifted for the third and final time as the last set of stone steps twisted around the obelisk, forming a tiny lip at the very tip of the obelisk, only wide enough for two people to stand within.

“Out with it.” I huffed, hands on my hips. “The riddle.”

Except no whisper came, even after we waited for some time.

“Well, that’s odd.” Zero looked around, confused.

What’s going on?

Had we somehow messed up, or had we perhaps-

“What do you desire?”

If it wasn’t for my steel haze physically forming behind me, I would have fallen into the blackness of the void far below. The sudden third voice, a voice that had been nothing more than a whisper this entire time, surprised me as it spoke from across the small lip of the obelisk tip.

“The hell?” Zero was staring at the empty space from where I had heard the voice, his eyes locked on to something.

Except, there was nothing there.

“Ahh, yes, the young sage can see me.”

Sage?

The voice was there, I was confident, yet I could see nothing.

“Once more, I ask both of you, what do you desire?”

What do I desire?

To escape this hell hole, of course, to get everyone left out alive and in one piece.

And….

I looked at Zero, who was still staring at the empty space, his attention fixated on whatever it was that he saw.

What if he’s the cause?

The thought returned an ugly, terrible thing.

But.

But it’s right.

He was the cause of it. A power that made no sense, a charm that was slowly swaying others to listen to him when he would only get them killed with his inexperience, and even now, this… voice spoke as if it recognized him.

What do I want?

The answer was simple.

I wanted us all to live.

But…

“You’ll have to make the hard decisions.”

Moving before I could think better of it, my hands lashed out, shoving hard as the final thing I saw on Zero’s face was the surprise, the look of betrayal in his eyes.

“I want you gone,” I whispered into the darkness, his figure disappearing into the depths of the void below, his visage seared into my mind as I was whisked away by the searing light of judgment as it carried me away to whatever was next.

I won’t let anyone else die because of you.