“Me?!”

“Yes, you! The child who left his friend to die, who choose to do the right thing even knows the consequence.” Zotoady says coldly, putting much irony on the word “right”, while keeping a villainous smile on his face.

“Shut up.” Erhart says quietly, he wishes that he can move his hands up to cover up his ears, yet just like before he is unable to move a single inch.

“I see so you did not forget

The Face you remember

The Smile you were given

The Death that follows”

“SHUT UP” Erhart’s mind in all of the sudden goes blank and his consciousness gradually fades away, he feels as if he is falling deeper and deeper into a ravine of darkness. With nothing to await him, nothing at all

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“Don’t worry Erhart, I will not blame you.” A young woman says staring down at Erhart. Erhart’s eye widens and he gasps. With barely any air in his lung he shouts, “Yuna!”

But Yuna does not seem to have heard his voice. She keeps her beautiful smile on her face, the smile that was once Erhart’s light and hope, but now it is the darkness that haunts him every night in his dreams. She pats Erhart on his back lightly on his back, attempting to calm him down. This Erhart seems to be in his teens, wearing a stained white lab coat.

On his face writes both sadness and furious, crashing the white metal floor with his fist. Keeps on gazing towards the other side of the room. The Thing is coming, the thing that caused all of Erhart’s guilt, regret and anger, the thing that represents the death itself, the thing that have taken all of Erhart’s will to live, along with the life of the one that is most precious to him from him.

The Gas, the Blue Mist.

“RUN YUNA!” Erhart shouts, but as if he is not even there, Erhart and Yuna stays still, they begin to move into a hugging position, burying each other’s eyes onto each other’s shoulder…..

“I SAID RUN!” Erhart sprints toward his old self and Yuna, strikes his hand forward attempt to drag them away, yet as if those two are not even there. Erhart’s body passes straight through both of them.

“GET OUT!”

“RUN!!”

“MOVE ERHART, BLOODY MOVE!”

“GET THEM OUT OF HERE!” Erhart shouts again and again. Charging forwards and back times after time trying to move them away, but he never succeeded.

Soon, he realises that this may well be an illusion set up by Zotoady. But the realness of the situation makes the illusion not matter much, to him, he simply does not wish to experience or see it happen all again. As he knows ‘I can never change my past.’

“DAMMIT!” Smashing his fist onto the wall.

“GET THEM out of here.” Erhart cries at the top of his lung.

“Good bye Erhart.” Yuna’s whisper gradually enters his head.

“get them out…..”

The frequency of Erhart’s fist hitting the wall gradually reduces, soon it stops entirely. Erhart lays against the wall with his two hands right above his head, his grip gradually tightens, tears begin to pour down from his eyes.

“AHHHHH” He screams. The sound echoes around the room, making it much more heart tearing than it already is.

……

“HAHAHAHAHA.”

The cry stops, replaced with a chain of laughing breaks out of nowhere. Erhart’s tears fly everywhere, as he trembles his head and dances around the room like a mad man. Don’t know if it is because of the satire that comes with the situation or maybe Erhart is suffering a mental breakdown, Erhart howls. Laughing at unlike many situations he was exposed to, which people lose their loved one because they do not have the power to save them.

Yet for his case, he had the power. Nothing can stand against his Sword Aura,

‘Swordmaster laughs when the world goes cry, one cut through the blood goes dry.’

Back then, if he wanted to, he could ,not to say the wall preventing them from escaping, he could cut the whole lab into two pieces without even raise a finger.

‘Yet WHY? WHY can I just not be more selfish! Why do I have to be this stupid? Why do I have to be such a good human being? WHY DO I FEEL RESPONSIBLE to KEEP THE GAS INSIDE THE LAB! SO A FEW PEOPLE I DON’T EVEN KNOW CAN LIVE AND ONE THAT I DO LOVE MUST DIE?! WHY? WHY! WHY! WHY ERHART! YOU BLOODY IDIOT’

;WHY WAS I BANISHED FROM THE VILLAGE DOING NOTHING WRONG?’

;WHY AM I STUPID ENOUGH TO CHOOSE [HUMAN] AS MY RACE! WHY CAN’T I can JUST THROW AWAY MY HUMANITY;

“WHY.” “Why.” “why….” Erhart gradually collapse onto the ground, staring aimless towards the lab’s floor. he soon shuts his eyes, covers the back of his head with his two hands. Rubbing his hair in frustration as he questions himself of all his actions and choices.

But out of the enteral despair one thought emerges that ends all others. ‘Will Yuna be happy, if I let many others to die instead of her.’

Erhart may well not wish to accept this but, if others are to die so that she can live.

Yuna may never smile again.