“Now! Kill him!”

I didn't care who just spoke.

As my gaze was only fixed on the body of that one girl, lying far in front there.

Sure I heard the sound of limping footsteps from behind, but I still couldn't believe what I was seeing with these two eyes of mine…

“Fanya…?”

A slash came straight towards my neck. But it could only injure a small part, just as the owner of the sword growled to amplify the pressure of the slash.

Then another sword came through my back right in the middle, this time the thin blade pierced my chest, through with ease.

My eyes were slightly diverted thanks to the attack…

I stared at the blade of the sword slowly coming out of the skin of my chest. Come to think of it, maybe it's easier to stab than cut something with a sword like this, huh?

“Like how the difference between a razor blade and an axe…”

I don't know what the hell am I talking about here.

I can only remain silent, again these damn eyes turned to that only one sad sight.

Like how the light grains full of her soul slowly drifted away from that body…

The whole of it faded from white to red, and just completely disappeared.

As then pools of blood flooded around, my wish for her to see me before she left didn't even have time to come true…

~~~~~

The scream of the man beside me grew louder and louder, his sword pierced deeper and deeper… As something seems to be touching my cervical spine…

Then this body suddenly feels numb, my control over my own body is slowly crumbling…

I'm just kneeling here, closing my eyes and completely motionless…

But I don't feel scared or anything… Either because I feel like I still have hope for something, or simply don't care about anything anymore…

“Kill the princess who is being protected by the knight, then he will have nothing left to fight for… Something to bet on with his own life…”

I opened my eyes just for those words for a few seconds, as I looked again at the man whose eyes were on me all this time…

If only I could close my ears even for a moment.

Hearing this man speak only made me feel even more that I had lost to him.

Ah…

Here comes my tears…

It’s finally falling.

“Though that girl is actually quite important for my future plans… Yet… It all paid off. And I admit that… Apparently… Killing a god like this can actually turn out to be dozens of times more difficult than what I had anticipated… Something for me to learn… So next time, we’ll just have a god to kill another god for us instead.”

I don't really care what he said, but…

It's all paid off, huh?

~~~~~

Even though it managed to break my body's movements, the man who previously tried to cut off my head, now gave up even just for pulling his sword back from my neck…

As well as another sword that pierced through my chest, they just didn't have enough strength to retrieve it.

It's six hundred and thirteen souls for now, after all…

And all that for what again?

“He said, all paid off?”

As they were just ordered to keep those swords in their own hands so it doesn't disappear while my heart is still being pierced by it, then I heard the sound of many rocks rumbling.

The sign of a portal that they had hoped so much for to appear, had finally arrived…

These souls… I can feel the presence of a great carrier along with two more people coming out of it.

“Sir? Are you okay? We forced the girl to take out the portal, but we are having a hard time communicating with her.” Someone new who came then apologized after giving an excuse that their leader might could understand…

“Your order sir?”

“The two of you who just arrived… You two still have wind crystals, correct? Then blow his head off using that magic on your weapons to make sure he really is dead.”

“But sir, his heart’s already… I can't even feel his breath or pulse-”

I try to open my eyes once again.

I smiled even more, watching the man who suddenly felt panicked…

Everyone was silent, paying attention to the same thing…

“The gun! Shoot him! Where’s the goddamn wind crystals!?”

That indiscriminate attack now couldn't even penetrate my skull…

The two people beside me pressed their swords deeper into my flesh, even though they knew it would be useless, as my left hand glowed dark red all the way to my shoulder…

“He's doing something… Oh god… Leave! Everyone leave! Deo! Hey kid! Shit… Hey! You! Someone get that boy over here! We’re leaving!”

They were all running on their feet…

But the sword around my neck finally disappeared as the hand that was holding it had slipped, so the position of the bones around my spine shifted again to regenerate…

I can feel a little part of my finger start to shake…

I raised my right hand, as the portal exploded with a curse…

“It all paid off, eh?”

The man panicked even more, but a new portal suddenly began to form behind him. Knowing that this is my third time destroying that magical circle, someone seems to be getting more serious about shooting me anywhere that might cripple this body again…

A bullet hit my only eye that was left, my vision then completely faded. Yet I can still feel the souls of each and every one of them, nothing but waiting for something to happen.

The shot just now doesn't really bother me much. Still my head bounced back a little, but my left hand was already raised high pointing at the sky.

I think this magic concentration is enough for now…

This is what is called as an absolute authority, I tell you…

It pays off, right?

“Then Deo… Wherever you are buddy… Wherever you will hide in any corner in this world, if you don't die here, I swear by anything…! I will be the only fucking one in this whole world who will kill you, you hear me!? I will show you what suffering is! You ask, then I will give you this suffering, you son of a bitch!”

~~~~~

There were two explosions that were created at that time…

The first came with a pressure capable of blowing all the dust in this place high into the sky, the second came without even a sound…

An explosion that separated the living and the dead, the black circle that revolved even wider each time the thousands of red claws on every side multiplied.

No souls can return to each of their own bodies which have faded with earth and air, ashes without fire…

Those who ask for something worth killing Fanya, then I will sacrifice myself just to show them what they have just bought with that helpless feeble soul of hers…

I let it all out without caring about anything, let the limits of my own consciousness determine how much this explosion will eat the souls around it…

“Now everything has really paid off…”

~~~~~

A glimmer of twilight from the front, I leaned back relaxed in the rocking chair…

One window in a room without a door, picture frames hanging irregularly.

I closed my eyes for a moment…

I opened it again.

The girl stood there looking at me with pity.

Her hair is light with the color of twilight, she apologized after I waited long enough for the words to come out.

“I can’t help…” She said.

~~~~~

But I know that it's not really like that.

“You actually want all of this to happen… You need this… To happen… Don’t you?”

She fell silent…

Hey, take a look at her.

She was completely speechless at those words.

“Ah…” My voice was low as it started, suddenly I screamed as loud as I could.

Staring at her puffy eyes with anger to the top, my scream made all the photo glass frames shattered on the floor.

A hoarse scream of something that everyone knew I shouldn't have received, but was yet given by this disgusting girl…

The place was silent for a moment, I stood up only to violently throw this chair right next to her, as she stood. “After all, you're just a suffering.”

Elis didn't leave me because she wanted to find a way to help, but because she knew that the girl's death was imminent…

She knew that Fanya was going to die…

She knew, and she didn't help me to prevent it.

“No… Daniel… It's not like that.”

Before I felt even more disgusted by her words, I strangled the little girl until she fell, I pressed her neck as hard as I could against the wooden floor.

The color of the twilight suddenly turned blood red.

Photo frames one by one fell from the wall…

“You only want me to suffer. Admit it…”

“Daniel.”

“Admit it!”

“No!” She replied to my shout with another shout.

I don't know why we were both silent, but we stared as if we were blaming each other.

Or… Elis just feels lost as much as I feel.

Then she said, “Daniel. I’m sorry… For her…”

A teardrop fell down the little girl's cheek.

I don't know why this self is able to cry in its own subconscious.

~~~~~

I wept bitterly at that time…

I just don't want to wake up for as long as I'm allowed to.

Or not waking up at all.

I want to rest until I lose my memory.

Whatever, for the sake of this pain in the heart disappears somehow.

~~~~~

Slowly my eyes began to fall… Lulled by a caress of someone pressing my head against her warm chest… Brought me into a dreamless sleep, closing my eyes with incomparable serenity. Something that I should refuse, but I just can't lie with this comfort either…

~~~~~