Succession.

"First of all, thank you for agreeing to come here. To risk exposing your allegiance to Riot over the Reaper's tyranny, you must want to save something. Or, more accurately, SOMEONE?" Katie asked.

She stood leaning against a hospital wall, clad in ragged attire as she stood beside Jefferson's figure. With one foot back against the wall, he hid his hands inside his jacket's pockets and parted his lips.

"Don't rub it in any further, alright? I already feel as guilty enough as is," Jeff replied, his brown eyes spotting bypassing children sprinting across the deserted road.

Both Jeff and Katie took brief notice of the overhead castle occupying Retly's limited airspace. Eventually, the woman's gaze fell again, and she returned to staring at the ground.

"I understand Alex told you what we plan on doing?" She queried, unwilling to spare him a glance.

"He did. To be honest, I can't help but remain confused. Why even tell me my part when the time hasn't even come yet? With the way things are moving, before she and I get a chance to talk, you'll begin the ambush," He answered.

"I understand that. But for our scenario to occur the way it's predestined, you have to speak at that time and place. Bear all your feelings with June, tell her everything you've been thinking for the sake of a better tomorrow. Should the worst-case scenario occur, June's our last resort," She informed him.

"But why? What's this worst-case scenario you're talking about? Do you know some things and not others..?" He asked after he unattached himself from the wall.

In the past, he argued for answers. But at the reaction of his disobedience, their gazes meshed, and her lifeless stare ensured his silence. There was no other path they could take besides the one ahead. The future was unchangeable, all they could do was try their hardest, no matter what disaster awaited them. Just that one look oozed off Katie's shady blue pupils and he was silent. His back pushed against the wall a second time, not to mention the way his hands sunk back into his pockets. Revealing a ball from within the jacket's pouch, he threw it into the air and caught it quite quickly.

"I understand. I'll do what you all want from me—no questions asked," Jefferson assured her.

"I appreciate it, Mr. Jefferson," Katie thanked her cousin's teacher.

But there was silence even after. A stagnating scent lingered around the air. Despite the assumption that the interaction was over, the brown-eyed man spoke a second time.

"So what about the Capital? If this plan of yours ends up working and Riot manages to control the military, what'll we do?" he asked.

And to answer his final question, she reminisced on the time she spent here. This place that so many innocents drenching in ignorance called their home. Her hand raised to the sky, yet no air skimmed through her fingers. A tiny glass singled out amongst a vast desert she could see through the sphere that imprisoned them—how humiliating the design was.

"The fate of the world will rest in Riot's hands. The Reaper will crumble. Even if it means I've got a year left to live—even if they scheme to take this death-defying power from inside me, it doesn't matter. Freedom will be ours. Even if we have to destroy everything to obtain it."

Present Day.

Katie shed the prisoner attire she was forced to wear. Having tied the sleeves around her waist, she wore the hoodie on her midsection like a belt. Brushing away the strands around her eyes, she stepped closer to June, bent over and tying her laces.

"Did you come to break me out with a plan, at least?" Katie asked her white-haired cousin.

"Nope!" June exclaimed, popping up her head. "After the old man gave me the pep talk, I came here immediately!" she said.

"Well, at least he did his job," said Kate.

Her hand fell to her hip. Fingers wrapping around a weapon, she ripped out an invisible blade, gaining corporeality as she raised her hand high enough to the sky. In her palm, she now held the unsurpassable might of the Crow's inherited Blackened Blade. Devious mist evaporated off the long darkened steel angled sideways. Cutting apart the entrapping bars with a single slash, she stepped out the hole and implanted her foot's sole against the dirty ground.

Turning around to face her relative, she weighed the katana on her shoulder and smirked. Spotting the white-haired girl she named her sister with sparkles in her lush orbs still idle, Katie opened her mouth.

"C'mon, June! We got a city to liberate!"

As quickly as she was freed, she zipped down the labyrinthine corridors, holding the Blade still against her stabilized shoulder. Wind throwing her hair around, June stepped out the hole she'd made and now stood with covered feet against the dungeon floor. She pushed her hair up and then tied the strands together, thus holding her locks upright. Unraveling verdant ropes from her fingers' tips, she tightened the grip manifesting at her cuticles. Green lightning crackled from her shoulders once her body's blur sped past the populated cells, fire singing away her footwear as she skidded to a halt at a dead end.

In the dungeon's inescapable darkness, she turned her head and revealed her left eye; glistening green within unfathomable shadows. Retracting the ropes into her flesh once more, her body shifted, and her footing changed. Rubbing her wrist with only one hand, she started walking and inched ever closer to a cell. If she were anyone else, she'd be running in circles, lost around the complex corridors of the underground lockup. But she wasn't anyone else. This cell wasn't any ordinary prisoner's.

Chained up like the Founder with his arms extended and cords binding his wrists, Ace's blindfolded Eternal Sight peered through the cover to recognize the spirit. Once her fingers tore apart his blindfold, he could see without covers. He recognized her face. But then again, how could he mistake it? His beloved sister was personalized with white hair and green eyes shining with Convergence's defensive hue.

After she stepped out of the shadows and revealed her familiar features, he smiled. The tiniest movement--even if it was just her stepping forward, revealing her face, paved the way for something more down the road.

In the blink of an eye, the chains spontaneously combusted, and he was free to stand tall against the ground he'd landed against. Rubbing his sore wrists, he upturned his head and looked at his sister. Once more the sides of Eternal Sight reunited, for the discolored eyes of Divergence and Convergence instantly linked upon recognizing each other's familiar faces.

Without needing words, she stepped closer and entangled her older brother's neck with her lanky arms. Ace's eyes closed as he melted in the warmth of her heated skin touching against his own. In this brief space where time was irrelevant before he inevitably pulled away, he contemplated this moment—this person.

He'd never felt the warm touch of a mother's comforting embrace, it was something he'd longed for the second the unavoidable truth came rushing through his head. June's arms around his neck, her cheek squished against his shoulder, and the muffled sobs uncontrollably spewed into his skin.

'Is this what… that feels like?'

Eventually, his little paradise ended, and his little sister pulled away from her sibling's arms. Disregarding a tear that'd stained his cheek, he sniffled with his head hung.

"A-are you okay, Ace?" June queried her older brother.

"I'm fine," he reassured her.

His hand on her shoulder, he stepped forward, allowing the tiniest of moonlight to enlighten his face; vanquishing the dungeon's contained darkness. His face now lit by a bright-white spotlight, his mouth formed a smile.

"I'm sorry I ever doubted you."

If this were any other time, in any other place, she'd already been on her knees. Collapsed and bawled into her white-skinned palms. But now… how strong was she? If she could withstand this insurmountable hurt, what was her limit? Then again, this wasn't the time to consider such possibilities—as she looked around, recognizing her vacant surroundings, she remembered where she was. Her brother was gone.

All that remained in this cell's darkness was the dim green light emanating off Convergence's unparalleled defensive. To think that those eyes, embedded with so much unnatural power, could produce a tear to stream down her cheek… was abnormal. And despite that impossibility, all she could do was stare at her tear-stained finger. Her head eventually raised, and she turned her skull to the destroyed cell doors—where Ace had fled.

He was long gone by this point. Though her brother would never listen, his legs racing through these dirtied halls with incessant moaning infesting his ears, she opened her mouth; readying a reply. And so, she said…

"It's okay. And, if it helps, I doubted myself too."

As stated earlier, the opposite sides of the all-seeing Eternal Sight were supernaturally linked. Though he hadn't listened with his ears, a tear squeezed out regardless. Continuously sprinting past unguarded cells, he reached his destination and phased through a locked metal vault. Throwing aside guards armed to the teeth in bulletproof armor and military rifles, he reached the stairs' end as his soles skid to a halt.

Beneath the surface of the Tower ruled by the Requiem Reaper, his father, there his mentor was chained against the floor. Raising his hung head, now analyzing the redhead standing over him with his pure white eyes, Alex snickered. Just then, he raised his arms and presented his bound wrists, smirking mischievously with shadows darkening half of his face.

"I'll let you do the honors," the bound Judge said.

"How kind of you," Ace sarcastically replied.

Chopping apart his chains with one downward slash, they fell to the ground, split apart and fizzling crimson electricity. Rubbing his wrists, moaning in relief, Ace stepped back.

"You good?" The ginger cautiously questioned.

"Haha, you kiddin'?"

His hands clapped together. Blinding white light escaped his open eyes and mouth.

"This is the best I've felt in years…"

Some hours later, after the morning sun raised, August was still sound asleep.

Nestled into the comfort of his bed, the imminent audio of knocking—a fist mere millimeters away from the door threatening his slumber jolted him awake. After vanishing from his sheet, the perpetrator was thrown into a nonconsensual chokehold, leaving them gasping for air with outreaching arms.

"August…" she gasped, "I-it's me..!"

Then he recognized her feminine features. Clad in a white robe, her hair the same shade as his own. Pink retinas revealing bloody vessels from within the eyeballs, she gasped and fell to the ground; finally collapsed. Scratching at her throat, she rapidly breathed after she gained her freedom, crouched atop the ground.

"S-sorry. You know how it is… always have to be cautious," said August, standing over her.

"I was… coming to tell you… about the Capital," Hana said through ragged breaths.

"The Capital? What happened? I didn't hear anything while I was asleep," August informed, crouched beside her.

"Giant… detonation…"

And those words were all he needed to hear. Despite the vagueness of the response, he knew the truth. His body dematerialized and abruptly, there he was atop his quarters' rooftop.

Far into the distance, protruding into the clouds and greying the heavens with a polluted shade, he remembered that horrifying sight. An inimitable painting carved anew by all the despair in the world and spewed onto the Remnant World's distorted plain.

'But with it spread so far before him, I can't help but feel even he'd shudder at this disturbing scenery.'

A mushroom cloud hovering atop the Capital's distant city. Looming like Death's

skull heralding the unavoidable truth that was ultimate destruction. The beautiful skyscape with glistening stars hovering amid the fiery-orange atmosphere, like a scene from a fantasy-given reality. For that memory to differ however greatly from the hellish scenery scarring his eyes, surely this must've been a nightmare.

"That's…"

Squinting further into the distance, the overwhelming smoke prohibiting his vision swiftly diminished to reveal the unfortunate truth. Standing where the refurbished Tower once laid, the Judge's white Goliath turned to spot the miniature shape of August's unwavering body. Hidden within the Giant's face, Alex's uncanny expression glared ahead.

The Reaper tore apart his pajamas, feeling the creeping crawling of his suit pour around his body. After clenching his fist, August chuckled; then grabbed at the black hood behind his nape.

"I wonder who the real successor is. Don't you… Alex?"

Alexander chuckled from inside the Giant. Bending his knees, knelt close to the ground. Closing his hand into a battle-ready fist, he prepared to charge ahead. But, not without a few last words.

"I'll come at you… August!"

To Be Continued.