Streaks

A white sky, snow everywhere, coldness worse than the void of space.

That was what met him on the other side. Jumping from his windows, Julian landed smoothly, snow crunching beneath his feet.

"Oh, it's you. Never thought you'd actually come back. Well, not like it matter. You're late, Lia is gone. And as per our contract, everyone shall join her.

He turned around mechanically as a wave of cold air washed over him, trying to freeze him to death in an instant.

The attempt was in vain however as a dark red aura kept the intrusive magic at bay.

Gazing at Puck, in his beast of the end true form, towering over the manner. Julian spoke, his expression stiff. "She's dead?"

"You-"

"YOU LET HER DIE!?" Julian was before the giant beast, his form carving a line across reality as he punched Puck in the face, his fist blurring with yang magic, the yellow of EC and the dark red of PoD.

The beast of the end body shattered like a mirror as everything was disintegrated from the place of impact. A little shadow crashing into the ground at ludicrous speed as the wave reached it.

Reappearing before the downed form of Puck, he grabbed him and squeezed a bit as his arm's vein exploded from the rapid change in extreme temperature Puck was attacking him with.

"For being such a failure of a father when you have so much power, I should kill you." He said hatefully as he used a combination of yin and yang magic to make the great spirit feel the closest thing it could to pain.

"But since I know Emilia love you, I'll let you live with your failure instead. Now, forget about that pathetic contract and tell me where Reinhardt is." Reaching inside the mind of the old critter, he crudely destroyed the contract with a rough application of EC and asked coldly.

"There'll be no need for that. I'm here." A resigned voice answered him in place of Puck.

Turning around, Julian dropped the furry spirit to the ground, who was still reeling from the crushing defeat, the pain, and having his soul crudely tinkered with.

"Reinhardt…" He began, his voice utterly devoid of emotion. "I asked you one thing, one task. To replace a duty you had already failed."

He waved at the frozen wasteland around them and at the utterly devoid of life Roswaal's mansion nearby. "And this is the result?"

"…"

"Revive her, Reinhardt. I know you have the power to, If you don't, you can give yourself the means to. If you do it, I'll make it as if this never happened."

"Reviving the dead… It's something I forbid myself from doing. I'm sorry, but I can't do that."

Julian face's twisted. "Oh, but it's not your choice to make, sword saint. Lugnica may just vanish overnight."

Reinhardt closed his eyes and sighed, the hand around his sheathed sword tightening. "I don't think that's something Emilia-Sama would approve off."

"But she's gone, you let her die, so why would it matter?" He pointed out and shrugged. "Besides, I can just rewind the entire world to before I kill them all. It should only take a second after all, so it would be like it'd never happen. I'd make you watch though. As much time as it take before you wield." He smiled coldly.

"I'm afraid I'll have to stop you if it comes to it. And while you're quite strong, you're no match for me." The red haired swordman said resolutely.

Julian took a step and appeared before the sword saint, looking down on him. "That's the thing, Reinhardt. You can't stop me. I came back from the dead once, you know it's true. You were there." Leaning forward, he smiled. "And I can do it as much as I need."

"You can't win against me, you'll just lose, and lose, and lose. Until you can't stand it anymore."

Reinhardt looked surprised and seems to hesitate a few second before he breathed out. "It doesn't matter, I have a duty to fulfil, and this one I cannot fail. I'm just... I'm sorry it all came to this." He struck out with his sheat, a bright light cleaving the sky and earth and bisecting Julian in a blink.

The cut disappeared in a flash of orange as he shook his head. "Bad choice, one I'd hope you'd make. It's time you pay for your failure outside of your guilt. Reinhardt."

"Also, I've lied. I don't need you to bring her back. I just wanted to know where you stood. As you are, you're nothing more than a insecure coward. Respectable, maybe, for sticking to your beliefs and values. But in my world... in Emilia's world. You serve no purpose." Julian's face was uncaring as he looked into Reinhardt's eyes, and his pupil became a mirror to the core of every single things in existence.

To the swordsaint's credit, what he saw in Julian's eyes barely had an effect at all. A sudden daze that he shrugged off in a fraction of a second.

But even that was too much, as the swordsaint came back to himself with his vision totally obscured by a closing hand.

The world slowed down to a crawl, he blessed himself with unlimited speed and the effect that melee attacks would always miss his person. It was maybe overkill, but his instinct screamed at him to not let the hand touch his head.

However, as he slapped the hand away with his pommel. He felt the world shift slightly, and he was back in his previous position, his sheated sword laying at his side. But this time the hand was just besides his head, it had missed.

The world shifted again, and he was back in his initial position. And the hand was just about to grasp his face again. But then, some yellow sparks flashed on the hand, and it shone a translucent orange light. And it simply magically reappeared a few millimeters forward. On his face.

Unlimited speed and reaction speed to go with it, and he hadn't even seen the movement.

"How-"

Reinhardt eyes were blinded by light, and he blacked out.

—————

Julian exploded in a mist of blood, only to come back whole a split second later. His magic sputtering as he fell on his knee and elbows, coughing and puking saliva from the sheer shock he was going through.

His eyes were bloodshot, and his wings shook with occasional spasmes.

He felt as if a beant hole had been blown into his chest with acid, and someone had twirled a burning metal rod inside his brain.

And for the first time in forever, he magical reserve were dry, totally dry.

He had no injury that he could tell, except for his gate which was simply pulverized right now. But he had the impression the injuries were deeper, on a more fundamental level.

He had been foolish. To reach Reinhardt, he had sent his whole being a split second forward in time. Without testing beforehand what was the cost or what it would do.

And he had paid the price.

In that timeless moment, where he just wasn't here nor there. He knew he had seen something, something that his mind refused to remember. That something had erased him and put him back together as soon he returned back here.

Time was linear. You could go back, you could go forward, you could even go sideways. Speeding or slowing yourself was easy when manipulating time. Going back was less so, but still relatively straightforward. But skipping forward?

It was like erasing your present self and rewriting him in a place that didn't exist. It was putting yourself as someone outside of its bounds. As something timeless.

There was normally an infinity of branching path being made each miliseconds, that's the basic of the multiverse and chaos. But for him?

Julian doubted he existed elsewhere but here, right now. Hence his predicament.

There was also the fact that even without any active protection, Reinhardt mind was naturally extremely strong. So that took the rest of his magic. Also, the man wasn't dead, just catatonic, until he decided otherwise.

Throwing a weary glance at the fallen form of said man, Julian felt something sort of click within him. He was rather familiar with the feeling now, it was another spark of impossibility. Only, this time, he wasn't sure what caused it.

It had been a gamble, but it seemed it paid off. Painfully pushing himself to his feet, he dragged himself toward the frozen mansion. Quietly being joined by Puck, who seemed to have recovered some in the meanwhile.

His body gradually warmed up as the snow and the ice began to melt quickly and evaporate into nothing. As he slowly progressed through the corridors of the familiar mansion toward a particular room. The great spirit spoke up hesitantly. "Can you truly... Bring Lia back to life?"

"I was certain of it before, but not so much now. Something will have to be sacrificed for it now." Julian breathed out. What could he give this time? His other arm? It shouldn't be too problematic since he already almost perfected his magical artificial prosthetic.

"A... Sacrifice? And what count as one, exactly."

Grunting in pain as he opened the last door to his destination, he gritted his teeth as he saw the corpse of two people in the room. One was the shattered body of a man covered in a cultist robe and the other was... Nothing more need to be said.

Closing his eyes, he answered, while beginning to prepare the ritual. "Anything can be a sacrifice, as long as it have literal or figurative value, it can even have emotional value. However, the sacrifice cannot be recovered, even with unordinary means. What are you ready to give up?"

"My power, and if it's not enough, my life." Puck said seriously as looked at Julian work.

"Given that she's still recent, but that I need to recover some of my injuries first, 75% of your mana and power should be just enough for both."

Biting off his wrist, he splashed his blood in precise arcs, drawing the ritual he was now quite familiar with in record time. He felt all the pain of the act vividly, without any magic, he felt weak and feeble. Like he was a babe all over again.

Fortunately, his body was still incredibly strong, so he could take it all.

Going over to the bed, he couldn't stop his hands from shaking a bit as he took Emilia's body in his arms and deposited in the middle of the ritual circle.

He felt the bitter and familiar feeling of self-loathing flare in his chest. He had failed again, he had failed to come back on time.

But then, he crushed those thoughts and banished it all. Remembering the words of his dad. Failures didn't matters, as long as you rectify them.

"Place yourself in that circle, and I'm warning you. It's going to hurt, a lot." Julian grunted and pointed the area to Puck, kneeling before the ritual and spreading his wings.

"That's not going to stop me." Puck snorted cutely and went to sit in the middle of the circle.

"Let's begin, then."

Julian recited the incantation, and his blood on the ground lit up. Guiding the flow of magic in the ritual with simply his will, a multicolored flame immediatly covered Puck diminutive form. To his credit, the old spirit didn't let out a sound as the equivalent of his lifeform was burned away.

Choosing the most efficient method, he exchanged a good chunk of Puck sacrificed mana to restaure his state to just before his confrontation with Reinhardt. To his annoyance, while his gate and magic got restaured, the pain only marginally faded away.

Shrugging, he then began the most important part of the ritual. Immediatly using Gate Overflow, he used his own magic plus the rest of puck's sacrifice of energy to begin the tug of war with Odd Laguna for Emilia's soul. Using a similar method that he used for Rem.

Only this time, his will and the mana involved in the ritual fell like a godly hammer on the hand of the unconscious deity of this world. It was barely a struggle to retrieve her soul and put it in back in her body.

Of course, he also used the opportunity to heal the stab wound on her chest so that not a single scar would remain.

Purple-blue eyes slowly opened, dazy and confused.

"Eh?"

"Lia!" A fluffy minature cat hobbled and wobbled in the air and tackled the half-elve girl in the face, rubbing his own against it.

"Puck? What's the matter with you? And why am I on the floor? Don't tell me I fell from the be-" Emilia froze mid sentence as she sat up with Puck in her arm and noticed the other occupant of the room.

She couldn't seem to believe her eyes. "You... It's you. You came back. Like you promised... But that's impossible."

Julian let out a breath and chuckled. "I did, I always fulfill my promises, after all. Or at least, I try to. Still, I should have come back sooner."

"What do you-" Her eyes caught glimpse of something shining in the corner of her vision, and turning toward it, her face filled with shock.

Turning back toward Julian, she regained her calm. "Tell me what happened, please. I want to know everything."

Standing up, he offered her a hand. "Fine, while Puck could explain. He seems pretty tired right now." He gestured to the snoring Puck in her arms. "Even then, there's some things I need to tell you, but also some I still need to do. So come with me."

After gazing with some worry and confusion at Puck, she lifted her head and nodded in understanding at him. Taking his hand in her own. However, she yelped as he directly lifted her from the ground and carried her in his arms. But it wasn't for long as their surrounding blurred and they found themselves in one of the corridor of the mansion and he let her back on the ground.

"Sorry, it was faster that way." Julian chuckled a bit at the face she was making.

Emilia, with a faint blush on her face and a complicated look in her eyes, huffed, "It's fine, but a warning would've been appreciated."

"Noted. Now, prepare yourself. It's not pretty on the other side of this door." He warned her before stepping inside the dining room where he was met with a scene of utter carnage. Blood, Body parts, and corpses of women and men in robes were everywhere in the room. And the culprits of this carnage stood in the middle of it all, covered in blood and motionless.

The sole view fill him with sheer, undaltered rage. But as his companion stepped inside and witnessed the scene, a cold bucket of water was doused on it.

"Volcanica above!" Her eyes wide, Emilia covered her mouth in shock. But then, she saw the two maids and she cried out. "Rem, Ram!" Heedless of everything else, she ran toward where they laid, one sitting on a chair and the other leaning against it, weapon still in hand.