Thirteen

The air around Auros vibrated with energy as Shining Eyes approached, his fingers crackling with raw power.

Sighing and turning away from him, Auros looked down at the street below, the Sundover Medical Building's light blinking in some pattern he knew he'd never understand. It shook at the power of his other self, rocking the foundations of the building from all the way at the top of the sky where he sat.

"Didn't I tell you not to look away from me, Auros," Shining Eyes asked, irritation shaking his voice.

"Just do what you're going to do," Auros answered, his voice hollow against the rising wind.

Grabbing him by the back of the shirt, Shining Eyes spit in his hair and said, "You're not even going to fight back, are you? You're just going to let this happen. You're pathetic."

Auros shrugged and whispered, "Really what is there to fight back for? What do you want me to say? You're right. Nobody wants me and I don't matter...at all. The closest I've come to that is Benny...and even she's chosen you. Just do this."

Shining Eyes glared and thick ice began to form around his other hand, slowly growing into the shape of a jagged blade. Lifting Auros up higher, he thrust his hand through his chest, the ice melting slightly at the heat of his body.

Blood poured from Auros's chest, just below his heart, the new hole throbbing as Shining Eyes pulled his hand out from the spot.

The pain barely even registered in his mind as Shining Eyes continued punching new holes into him, riddling him with agony.

Lifting him over the ledge, Shining Eyes let his body drop, unceremoniously falling through the air as the life drained from him. The seemingly infinite reserves of energy he'd seen in himself nowhere to be found as the wind raced past his face.

Tumbling head over heels through the darkness, Auros's thoughts drained from his head, the few things he'd feared and cared about slowly losing cohesion in the shadows between the buildings until there was nothing left in him.

Several minutes passed before he finally hit the ground, his body making a sickeningly wet thud upon collision, and then the pain hit him, still alive despite all reasons that he shouldn't be.

Within seconds of landing, Shining Eyes was on him again, his palms glowing red as they gathered fire and lightning along his skin. Smiling sadistically, he turned his palms upon Auros and began raking his body with the power, carving new and deep lines along his arms and legs, slowly working his way to his chest.

After minutes of this torture passed, Shining Eyes finally let the spell go as his mana drained toward the danger zone, breathing a sigh of pleasure as Auros lay before him, the shame of who he might have been still alive...but clearly dying.

Spitting on him again, Shining Eyes turned away from Auros and left, walking into the darkness of the alley and disappearing with a bright flash of red as a gateway opened for him.

The alley dimmed slowly, the light of the gate flickering away in the rapidly cooling air as Auros lay bleeding on the ground.

The blood pooled around him and began to bubble and froth as he willed his life to end, the pain overwhelming his mind and driving him to even deeper depths of despair.

The alley stretched and contorted around him, extending for miles in every direction, until the buildings and ground had distorted to empty black space as far as his eye could see. His body screamed in agony as the inky dark surrounding him poured into his wounds, closing and sealing them as though he had never been harmed.

His voice trickled from the air around him, broken and weak, "I can't even die."

He lay there for a long time, minutes racing by and blurring into hours as his body healed and the dark encroached on his soul, lancing ice cold fingers through the very core of his being.

Then he was up, standing despite his body's protest as every inch of him shook from the pain of the action, though he had no memory of lifting himself up. Looking around he saw that he was alone, a single light in the dark of whatever realm he'd fallen into.

Then he was surrounded on all sides by faceless people, forgotten lives in a realm nobody would ever see. They reached for him, their hands pushing him forward from where he stood, struggling to keep his composure as the blanks began to speak, their flat faces shaping and molding as though their mouths were covered in flesh. He struggled to hear what they said, the obscene motions of their skin filling him with disgust, and their words only making it worse.

After a moment, he realized that they were saying names, a discordant deluge of information and titles that felt like memories he was hearing through a waterfall, barely audible over the rush of what he felt could only be the passage of time.

Were they...him?

Had he simply...never mattered?

Was his destiny to be so worthless that even through the flow of time, from life to life, he didn't even deserve to have a face in his own memory?

Their hands gripped his body and head, turning him forward, away from what he had been, forcing him to look forward through even more nameless ages.

Millions of lives stretched out before him, faceless heads ignoring his growing distress, all looking forward until he finally saw two lights standing side by side, the same...but splintered, as though at some point in the future his very soul would shatter.

They looked back at him, seeing him clearly through the murk of his countless pointless lives, and suddenly the others were gone, and it was him with his future selves. Turning fully toward him, the boy on his left bore his eyes, bright and glowing red, a sign of some deeper intent, of some kind of...madness.

Madness.

The word rang through him and triggered something he hadn't known he had, an understanding of something that he was undergoing but might not even exist yet.

The other looked at him, the boy on his right, his eyes a deep and glittering blue, with shimmering white lines ringing his pupils.

They put their hands on his and turned away from him, pointing with their free hands to a place where the light stopped, even further away. Thousands of years and lives flew past him as they drug him to a place where the lines ended, an edge in the darkness that fell into a deep pit filled with roaring black flame.

They stepped forward and as they all fell, the fire parted and a deep and sad voice rang out powerfully in the gloom.

"It seems I've always had this pain in me...it travels through lives and clings to the hearts of every life we've lived."

Before Auros could answer, they slowed to a stop, bobbing in midair, surrounded by inky inferno that raged with no heat. Along the walls of the pit, a pair of glowing red eyes opened and a form that barely held cohesion floated forward.

"You look so much like me," the form said, slowly solidifying and taking shape.

"Who are you," Auros asked quietly.

The figure took shape, his own face looking back at him, perhaps older and wiser. A black circle around his left eye and much longer hair set them apart quite distinctly, the other's white bangs almost covering his eyes, while the rest of his hair was black and practically reached down to his lower back.

"I have a lot of names now...I have lived a long time...but I am most commonly known by Leon now...I am the final you...in a manner of speaking."

He reached out and touched Auros's forehead and then they were floating above a deep purple lake.

"There are so many things you and I need to discuss," Leon said, his voice quiet at the weight of the conversation to come.