“EvEN…enough!……EVEN!” I collapsed onto the ground, unable to stand from the nausea and pain burning in my arm.

It felt wrong. On an instinctual, biological level— it felt wrong. I remembered having learned of parasites as a child, goosebumps crawling across my skin at the thought of something alien permeating my body, living there. Breeding. My body being host to something that cared nothing for me.

The burning in my arm crawled through every cell of my nervous system, traveling through my body without mercy. Is this what immolation felt like?

Images of my Slayer flashed like lightning in my mind. I saw Even, as I did after my fight with the Rogue…but this was different.

“Even…li-sten…!”

My mouth tasted like iron, and with every word, drool leaked through my teeth.

His form blurred across my vision, but it was because I was connected to him that I felt it in my soul. He was fighting against it. No. It wasn’t just him.

The arm— the Outsider— was rejecting us.

“We..have…nO CHOICE!”

The sword had shattered, we had nothing left that could damage an Omega. We had nothing left to fight alongside Chelsea.

We could run? Right. Of course we could. Of course.

“But that isn’t…why we came!”

I could run. No one would blame me.

No one could accuse me of not having fought. Of being cowardly. But even so…

“…remember the old world!"

For a simple, brief moment, with every cell of his body— Even listened. And that was all I needed.

“Remember…the old world…!”

I grit my teeth, straining my body and forcing it to move. Coarse, guttural grunts escaped my throat as my fingers gripped the circular panels. I felt the blood vessels in my eyes rupture from the migraine, and the blood running down my nose and into my mouth. I felt my lungs heave at the pressure I forced them through. I felt my body destroying itself in real time.

Was this self-immolation? Self-destruction? Suicide?

“Remember…the old world! I won’t..!”

Will. Desire. Spite. Everything I had left, and everything I didn’t, I forced into the arm. I twisted my neck to it, commanding the crystals to bond with the circuitry inside Even’s system in an amalgamation of putrid biomechanical clusters and knots.

“I will not…leave someone alone!” I screamed to the fulgurated lights inside of the Slayer, “I will not be another failure in this world!”

Vermillion lights faded into emerald as Even propelled itself into the desert faster than I could register. In the blink of an eye the Behemoth stood before me, shaking the already unstable sands as I positioned myself before its hind leg; the open wound on its calf inflicted by Chelsea, the Behemoth had regenerated so much of it already.

But steam still emanated from a single, deep lesion. One that was right within my reach.

“Child!? No, step ba—!”

Plunging the crystal deep inside the gash, I only barely registered its howls as I forced the crystal to grow intricate fractals between the fibers of muscle. And with equally suicidal fervor—

“AAAGGHHHHHHH!”

—I yanked the lance outward, splattering chunks of vascular muscle across the desert lands.

*GRRROOOOOGGGGGGGHHHHH*

I dodged beneath its whirling tail as I examined the lance from the corner of my eye. The crystals that grew from the main body shattered after extracting the weapon, it seems they were more brittle at my command, but the arm itself remained intact. As for the Behemoth, with each heartbeat blood gushed out of the near-glowing wound; I could see pink, glass-like shards in its body— like shrapnel. It, too, seemed to have known the one responsible since its focus completely shifted from Chelsea, to me.

“Child, back away!”

“Chelgghh—!”

Thick, warm fluid clogged my throat— I didn’t have time to examine the gunk I spat out, but it didn’t matter either way if I couldn’t speak to her. I could tell from the copper taste and yearning to yank out my Adam's apple that my throat was shot— my injuries were far worse than I thought.

I dodged its frontal hoof, quickly stabbing it and propelling myself beneath its whole body to come out from behind it. It was an idiotic move on top of the slew of idiotic choices I already made, but I just automatically attacked its weakest point, I had no time to think. My body was working off instinct— if I stopped to consider my options, to weigh risk and reward, to even think about resting, that’d be it for me.

I could do nothing else but listen to where instinct guided me.

“In that case, we enact your plan together.”

I was surprised to find a crimson colored Slayer to my left— I could feel her varying emotions after seeing the crystal attached to my arm, but she pushed them all aside.

“Whether intentional or not, you completely destroyed the tendon of its right hind leg— hence its slow movement when you rushed beneath it. Puncture its muscle so I may destroy its left hind tendon then quickly move to its front.”

I widened my eyes, listening to her as she folded into stance.

“I will leave the killing blow to you.”

The monster charged clumsily at us, with far less speed but a greater amount of hate. I made my way forward in a close berth as Chelsea spun around— digging her blade into the earth to upheave a massive amount of ashen particles into the air as she jumped straight into its face. I yelled out to her, but the pain in my throat shot through my body, making me stumble— but like Annika said…I was worried for nothing.

From the falling sand transpierced a blood red Slayer, and the Behemoth with its abominable speed used its horns to strike her. And hit her it did— but like a mirage, the image of her Slayer seemed to vanish as she caught the horn of the beast, now mere meters away from its face. The creature’s eyelids finally opened to their fullest as it violently shook to get her off of it; as I made my way to its leg and prepared to strike, I could see it succeeded in throwing her off. Or rather, it’d be more accurate to say she let go.

This monster, so preoccupied with what was in front of it, forgot what was behind.

“—!——!!”

I plunged the lance as far as it would go into its hind leg, feeling its muscles cinch closed with guttural cries. My eyes widened at the feeling of my body being lifted off the ground, but I instinctively knew what it was doing— surviving. The metal frame of my Slayer violently rattled as its hoof pounded against the sand; it was too risky to let go, unless—

“Leap from it!”

Another massive tremble of the earth, but I had no time to process it. Just as it heaved its limb into the air once more, I wrenched the lance from its body. Weightlessness overtook me, and for a brief moment I saw Chelsea soaring through the sky opposite me, aiming herself right where I had been. Even though we were inside our Slayers, I could feel our eyes meet, and understood in an instant what she wanted from me. What I had to do.

Taking on a similar position, I spread my limbs outward to control my fall, stabbing the crystal lance into the Outsider’s massive ribs to slow myself down before finally landing below its face.

“A single verse…” I heard a voice call near whisper over the comm. Chelsea now stood where I’d been seconds ago with her sword sheathed in its scabbard. Though our positions were now completely switched, I couldn’t help but feel danger. Danger not from the Behemoth.

But from her.

“CAESURA!”

Embers burned through the sands of the air as her sword illuminated the darkened earth and sky; for a brief, brilliant moment, crimson light escaped from the scabbard as her sword became an engulfing light, tearing through the fresh wound of the Behemoth’s once impenetrable body.

*GRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAA*

Blood erupted from each of its legs— Chelsea’s attack having managed to not just cut through the new wound, but burn through the regeneration of its other leg. The Outsider fell onto its front legs in a desperate, frightening howl. Unable to support its own weight.

Unable to move.

“Child—now!”

Given the situation we were in, I should have moved immediately but……I couldn't help but be captivated. Her movement, her ability to analyze and fight any situation head-on— it was a sorrowful, beautiful captivation. The result of survival, in the rawest sense of the word. For eight years.

“There were never any designs for them when you created your Slayer.”

Incompetent. Did I match the description for such a word? Certainly in the old world there were people much more capable than I, in everything I did.

Even here, there are people much more capable than I.

“The only thing I can do is bear witness to your growth, and should your resolve be strong enough—”

In that case, in honor of the kid that wanted to be a space hero, of the young adult that never felt at home in the old world— I need to bear my own burden. Bear witness to this new world.

“—teach you to survive.”

I recalled the way Chelsea stopped Senpai from nearly killing me, of the way she so easily tossed me aside in our spar, and of the way she annihilated a Swarmer without so much as blinking. As if on instinct, I felt my body mimicking the stance she used in each of those instances. Voices echoed through the radio in my ear, but I couldn't hear them.

“I never trained with a sword…”

I looked up to see the Behemoth inching towards me in a defunct crawl. I felt the joints of my exposed knees bend, lance held firmly behind me even without armor. The monster’s jaw unhinged, preparing another roar of wrath and agony, but the glow of my lance was quicker.

“hhhaAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!”

A single, bare strike was enough.

*RRRROOOOOOO——!*

The Behemoth’s voice instantly deadened as a nearly eleven foot lance of crystal penetrated the upper jaw of the beast, tearing through sections of teeth and the entirety of its muscle as it jutted out of its massive nostrils. My ice-thin Aegis instantly shattered against the vibrations of its cry of anger, but I grabbed onto one of its canines, pushing the crystal further in to prevent it from even thinking about closing its mouth.

“Child—!”

I couldn’t answer, my throat was as destroyed as the Behemoth’s, though I had an idea over what she was going to say. I had to put an end to this as quickly as—

Rumbling. Different from last time.

I looked behind me to see sand falling in a circle all around the Behemoth— a pitfall, not unlike the one the Crysfiends first trapped me with. Only this one……this was too big.

The ashen sand continued to fall in a pattern, revealing the shape of a giant maw I recognized as the Outsider that had nearly caused Chelsea’s death— the one Senpai had been fighting in the distance.

The Worm of the Earth. Its mouth was almost as big as the Behemoth itself; why was it trying to eat one of its own kind?! It revealed itself so fast I had no time to react— I was about to be swallowed. That is, if the Worm were going to eat the Behemoth in the first place.

The jaws around the Worm stretched as wide as they could, but couldn't fit the sheer size of the Omega class Behemoth. Thin, razor sharp needles of muscle clasped onto the monster, managing to catch one of my feet before I could hold myself to the roof of the Behemoth’s mouth completely. I heard sounds of battle from below— was someone other than Chelsea fighting now? Senpai?

Before I could utter another thought, g-force slammed into me, yanking me left, right, and back again as the Worm did its best to fit the Behemoth into its mouth. I tried forcing the lance to crystallize through the muscle, to give myself a better grip and prevent my death, but already I’d far, far passed my limit. As the Worm leapt into the air, the crystal attaching my arm to the Behemoth’s penetrated nose shattered like glass, sending me flying as glimpses of the Worm of the Earth swallowing the Omega class Behemoth whole blurred across my vision. I felt myself scatter across the desert like a broken toy; with no armor to protect me, parts of Even detached from the main body, sinking into the iron-colored sand.

I was barely conscious by the time I stopped moving.

Any moment now, collateral damage from the Worm or Behemoth would crush me and that would be that. Not a terrible ending, all things considered.

I looked weakly at my left arm……how strange. I could still see part of the crystal, the Crysfiend, attached to my arm. It looked like a car wreck, if wrecks could include biological crystals attached to mechas by literal wires and scraps.

“Child!”

My vision was blurry, I couldn't make out any detail but recognized the crimson color. I didn’t even try to speak from the pain in my throat, and recognizing it only made my consciousness fade faster. I felt tired. I wanted to sleep the pain away.

But I had to warn her. I prayed that the Empathetic Connect could reach her and tell her to return to base— if the Outsiders were devouring each other, that was all the better for us. A chance for survival.

But instead, I heard that cry…a cry from that same little girl.

“Mama…it still really hurts.”

“Sweetheart, you need to be more careful; mommy told you not to run but you didn’t listen.”

The little girl pulled the covers up to her chin in guilty admittance.

“Can you…sing to make it better?”

A laugh. Gentle. Sweet.

“Dear, you’re already nine years old and still want me to sing when you get hurt?”

A nod. A guilty smile.

“I like it…when mama sings.”

A defeated sigh. A happy one.

“Listen to mommy afterwards, and go to bed soon after, okay?”

Another nod. With that, the woman with dark hair, about to her shoulders, and warm eyes like coffee took a deep breath.

She starts to sing.

“♪ Tiny little bruises will go a-way; soon they’ll disappear like a stow-a-way~”

“♪ When there’re no more tears we can go-and-play; Heaven’s little angels with you all-day~”

I couldn't see anymore but thought if this was my end…hearing such a nice song is a better ending then I deserve.

But her voice…sounds so familiar……

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Chelsea looked at the bare mecha before her; rarely is a Slayer in such condition with the pilot still conscious. For him to have held out for so long after having no more than a day’s worth of experience was…unusual. It’s no wonder they were curious about him.

However, even given her annoyance at her emotion having leaked out, now was not the time to worry about such a thing.

“It’s devouring the Behemoth?…no. Saving it.”

“What makes you think?” asked a silver white Slayer that landed next to her. Chelsea stayed silent, examining the exposed metal sphere inside Even, the one that held its Resonator.

“The nanobots are keeping him alive by a thread; return with him to the Redoubt.”

“It’d be wise to deal with the enemy first.”

With weapon in hand she rose to look at the beast now having swallowed the Omega whole. Deformities stretched the muscles of the Worm, making its body bulge and pop in ways already unnatural to the abomination of a creature. Yes. It was saving the Omega.

“You didn’t kill it.”

“…orders are orders.”

“They’ve more than seen the results now,” commented Senpai, prodding the bare Slayer. “But still you had trouble. Well, even for an Omega it’s quite the specimen…hmm. Quite the prelude.”

A prelude.

What for, he didn’t need to say; for the fact that so many strange occurrences happened in such a short amount of time was all the proof they needed.

“What will you do?” he asked, craning his neck. He focused his gaze, watching as the same scene unfolding before him unfolded before Chelsea. The Worm of the Earth, now a horrendous cylinder of muscle and scales, was repositioning itself, gauchely digging hundreds of claws into the sand in preparation to retreat.

Chelsea had never been one for many words, so her answer was clear when she gripped the handle of the sheath on her hip. Even so— she spoke.

“This…shall not stand.”

“……I see.” Without grace, Senpai detached the metal sphere from the rest of the fallen Slayer, carrying the gleaming orb close to his chest. “Then hurry; I will take this one.”

With a simple nod, she strode forward, walking towards the creature sending shockwaves through the ever-loosening sand. For what reason it held the Omega in its mouth, whole and complete, she didn’t know. And at the rate it was digging, it would certainly escape her.

But no longer did she need to be wary of anything other than the vile obscenity before her. No longer did she need to withhold strength, in fear of striking a child.

“Hear, child of the barren sands, and lament, having borne the blood of the weary.”

With each word, her eyes seemed to glow brighter. Even as she stopped walking, taking on a stance low to the ground, she could see the creature, its movements, its future.

“Hear your aria echoed by the nameless and buried. For here, the desolate will be your witness.”

Inside her Slayer, darkness became illuminated by Chelsea’s eyes opening as far as they possibly could. Iridescent light pushed back the darkness, even spreading throughout her Slayer itself; the light collecting, incandescent within her sheath.

The Worm of the Earth, nearly as wide as the Omega but easily five times its length, turned as brilliant crimson light elucidated the ashen world. Her light seemed to even pierce the sky itself, as clouds filtering golden light mingled with the glow emanating from Chelsea.

She didn’t need an ability to know that the Outsider understood— fleeing was not an option. She almost pitied the fact it couldn't understand that neither was a fruitless struggle.

Yes. Even as she stood completely still, she could see the movement of the atrocity— every attack, every wail, every movement down to the twitching of its easily breakable legs. She forced herself to see it all, to see further into the end of the battle; the child sacrificed himself because she didn’t rely enough on her ability.

No. It wasn’t that; rather, some things were unpreventable— this fate, her fate, is one of them.

But allowing such an atrocity to live?

“M-M-Mama…i-it hurts……”

And the smile this child gave, even as his life was shattered in defense of hers. She clenched her teeth, pupils dilating to the point of blackness despite the enormous quantities of light.

This……shall not stand!

“Chanteuse, the Songstress, Third Recital—”

The creature howled as walls of wet, hardened sand erupted from the ground, encircling her. And from those walls, waves of razor sharp particles flew at Chelsea, tearing through the air so fast the air itself screamed in pain; thunderous vibrations rumbled through the earth as clumps of particles tore through Chelsea, hauling waves of sand tens of feet into the air. Yet she didn’t move. Or rather, it was more appropriate to say that the shots tore through Chanteuse, only for her to disappear like smoke.

Like an afterimage.

The Worm of the Earth only had a moment to see the crimson Slayer disappear before an agonizing wail echoed through the entire desert, oceans of blood flying in an arc as a glowing Slayer turned upright in the air, staring in absolute fury at the Outsider.

“—Hymnal of the Desecrated Earth!”

She activated the boosters of her flight system, nosediving at the exact angle she wounded the Worm, embedding the blade into its body as she plummeted toward the ground. Organs, blood, and limbs were sent flying in every direction as she tore the sword out of its side, partially exposing the Omega within the Worm. The Outsider wailed, flailing like a centipede covered in salt; sand erupted from every direction without pattern, without method, but she had already seen it all.

Chanteuse disappeared just as a pillar of sand exploded beneath her, hitting her afterimage as she stabbed her sword into the earth at an angle, twisting the blade into the Worm’s scales to grip it and haul it out of the sand by a few feet alongside swarths of purple blood and more limbs. Another piercing, agonizing cry, and more explosions of iron-colored sand. But each time it flailed, each time it tried to strike her, Chanteuse would not be there, instead, already moving to the next area, plunging her blade into its body and creating gashes deep enough to expose the creature’s internal organs.

No. She would not show it mercy— just as it had not shown mercy to anyone it came across.

“ I told you, your aria will be echoed by the nameless and buried.” she said, bursting into the air with her jets as her sword carried the Outsider further into the open. “I told you— that only the desolate will be your witness!”

The Worm flung its body into her but only managed to strike at the vanishing crimson color, shrieking as it slowly came at the mercy of being flailed like a broken puppet. Its hundreds of centipede-like legs tried striking her only to hit the vanishing air— in fact, Chanteuse was not even touching the ground anymore. With each strike, the Worm was forcibly removed from the earth until now— now it was completely exposed, at the mercy of the elements as Chelsea used her boosters in combination with eight years of Ghost Step to shift her momentum at a moment’s notice in midair.

Golden sunlight mingled with crimson strikes to illuminate the single Slayer, seemingly everywhere at once, cutting the Worm of the Earth into ribbons; what were once thick globs of blood pools now fell like a waterfall as flesh and scales were torn open like scrap paper, showering the barren land in amethyst colored blood shining bright with the rays of yellow and red. Before long, Chelsea could see the Omega clearly, and took every opportunity to strike not just at the Worm of the Earth, but at the Behemoth resting inside the monstrosity— all while continuing to rise further into the air; inch by inch, strike by strike.

Yet as she was about to deliver her final swing, the Worm, reduced to nothing but muscle fibers and teeth, inverted its stomach completely— launching the Omega out of what little stomach it had left, sending it tumbling into the earth. She saw it coming, of course, managing to gouge out one of its eyes as it was hurled to the ground— but she couldn't pursue further. She couldn't stop, not now. But as the Omega moaned and dragged itself away, Chelsea remembered that it was it that injured the child; it was time to put an end to this.

Allowing herself to fall to the ground, blood splashed up her legs as she used Ghost Step in conjunction with her boosters to launch herself into the air. The Worm of the Earth was still alive, and to her, that was unacceptable. Twisting in midair, the last light of her Slayer flowed into both her flight system and sheath as she used everything left in her power, with sword at her waist, to plummet towards the earth.

Like lightning in the middle of the day, the light of her attack briefly illuminated the world as, upon sheathing her sword, the strike completely decapitated the Worm of the Earth, its body crash landing onto sand wet and thick with blood, causing a wave that coated Chanteuse’s back purple.

She exhaled, but rest was not an option.

“Now for—!”

The light faded from her eyes as she stumbled forward, barely catching her fall with her enormous sheath.

“Quite the mastery of Ghost Step,” radioed a voice in her ear, “but you should let it go.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” she said, stumbling forward, “it’s on the brink of death, I can easily—”

“‘I recommend no Slayer to go beyond our range of self-defense.’ Those were your words to ESDF, were they not? Your little scuffle brought you to the edge of that range, and it healed just enough to run away.”

“…even so……that creature…”

“……this is unlike you, Chelsea, but if you have a death wish I won’t stop you. I’ll be bringing whoever this one is back to base, so do as you please.”

The signal cut off, and Chelsea could see a silver and white Slayer run back to the Redoubt at incredible speeds. In one of its hands was a metallic sphere, housing the Resonator, while the other carried a barely recognizable Slayer behind its back. He called her by name…which means something serious either has happened, or will.

In the distance, the semi-recovered Omega could be seen trotting in retreat. It frustrated her to no end, but she recognized that Senpai had a point. Though she could still fight, the Omega had proven itself to be a legitimate challenge, and now was the time to see of the others. Yes; of Juan, Ildefons, Fiametta, and Anon.

She turned towards the carnage of the wasteland: blood, organs, ash— the scenes of desecration. At one point she would have thrown up from the mere smell of it, but those days have long, long since passed. But the situation did fill her with a sense of unease she’d not felt in years.

“Quite the prelude.” her senior had told her.

She stared at the blade in her hand, then at the sky above.

It was a sky that was now familiar to her.

“……tiny little bruises will go away. Soon they’ll disappear like a stowaway. When there’re no more tears we can go and play. Heaven’s little angels…with you all day.”