Chapter 9C: Golden Eyes, Glowing Embers

I will confess that I have wondered about the way that I could still feel Aziel and Kalairo in my head. Though they had lost their individuality and melted in with my own spirit, I could still sense their energy inside myself. Each kill had transformed me. Each kill had empowered me. In the nights after I killed Kalairo, I set aside my notebooks filled with nonsense and instead read books from other killers just like me. Though they discussed sin and guilt and pain, no other killer made mention of inheriting the essence of their fallen foe. At that time, I had simply concluded that I am unique in that way. I concluded that it was at worst a way of punishing myself for my murderous descent, or at best it meant that I am an afterlife unto myself – that the people who die by my hand are not conscripted to Heaven or Hell or anywhere else. They instead settle on my skin as a specter while I strive for eternity.

But instead of entertaining the possibility that I am the human form of the Interfectus, I instead saw the way the towering enemy pressed her shield forward and overpowered Aeliana. The love of my life lost her footing and fell onto the sand, so I launched myself into motion. I sprinted across the sand at my fastest speed and swung my sword in a desperate attempt to save her life, but the golden-eyed enemy used that moment to unleash a fiery sphere without hesitation. A cataclysmic crash echoed across the shore, and every raindrop reflected the radiant fireball. It shot across the sand so swiftly that even my power could not protect me; the searing sphere struck me at full force like a flashflood of fire.

The eruption and the shockwave combined to hurl me through the windows of the nearest building. Rain and glass shattered in my slipstream and spiraled through the shadowed shop. My body barreled through the bread in this bakery’s display, and the only worker exclaimed with shock at this revelation. I did not realize how much damage I had taken until I stood upright, but in that moment, I could feel every incision ignite upon my skin. But as the worker dashed into the corner of the quiet bakery, I glanced out the broken window and saw my enemy launch herself in motion. By blasting two fireballs at a high speed behind her, she both knocked Aeliana into the sea and launched herself closer with the resonant recoil. I did not even realize the speed she attained until her shield shattered the door in a shower of woodchips.

As a flash of lightning illuminated the rainy darkness behind her, my assailant lifted her left hand and forced a fire stream to spiral swiftly into a sphere which she then unleashed. Flashing fiery light forced a flicker into the shattered glass, but I summoned a substitute dummy which I then pushed aside with all my strength. This shove was powerful enough that the fireball flew furiously between myself and my decoy; it struck the helpless worker who cowered in the corner of the bakery. I saw the shockwave shatter his bones as the fire engulfed his clothes. It was then that I realized that Aeliana and I had only survived her strikes because our clothes were soaked by the sea and the rain. But with no such defense for himself, the victim strived to tear himself free from his blazing clothes. The flames burned through his nerves before he ever got the chance. The crackle of growing flames quickly eclipsed his hopeless screams as his body surrendered to the forces of fire.

Though my enemy and I both felt nothing for the civilian killed in the crossfire of our calamitous clash, I steadied my sword and glared into her golden eyes. A flash of lightning illuminated the darkness behind her, and the flicker of fire illuminated the light behind me. The surface of her shield shimmered in the shower of light.

“Perhaps I truly am a monster unconcerned with my own origin. Perhaps I truly will shatter this world as if it’s made of porcelain. Perhaps I will prove to be the darkness at the end of all things. I have no doubt that I will force this world to end in screams. You were right that I am a monster that surely must be stopped, but you were wrong to think that you could carry out that plot. You were merely touched by the same darkness that pervades me, which means your failure in this fight was from the start a guarantee. You should have been careful what you chase because it all just might come true. I would kill everyone and everything just to hear her say I love you. It was a deadly mistake for you to ever start this fight,” I said as my body shimmered in the fiery light.

The towering woman was transfixed by my words, but they had already served their primary purpose. She almost seemed stupefied as if overwhelmed by the screaming souls locked inside her head. If she were right, and we were connected as a vestige and a vessel to the very same dark force, then we were truly bound to each other exactly as she said. One darkness would devour the other and superpose to summon a world without light. And just as I had earlier resolved to step into eternity with this body just to resist rerolling the cosmic dice, I determined that I had to destroy this assailant at all costs. I could not let her win, and more importantly, she had already hurt Aeliana; she had already committed an unforgivable sin. This was the only way to exert my will upon reality, which meant it simply had to happen. I would rewrite reality itself and reject any recourse.

I threw myself forward and slashed my sword with so much force that it struck her spiked shield and sent her stumbling back into the street. She tried to retaliate by striking me with the symbol on her weapon, so I threw myself backward to evade the attack. It was then that she lifted her left hand and again created a sphere of spiraling fire. I could feel the heat from a distance, so I desperately used my stolen power to produce a decoy to take the hit for me, though I quickly realized that her weapon was far more fearsome in an enclosed space. When she unleashed her fireball, the flames devoured my decoy and blasted me backward through the wall of this building. Dazed and disoriented, I desperately stumbled onto my knees on the tile floor of an empty tavern. Broken glass and spilled spirits scattered the shambles around me. Fire flickered on the wall and surrounded the breakage through which I had first entered this tavern. I saw the small flames inch toward dark bottles on the shelves, so I partially retreated and steadied my sword.

(please note: There is one more part to this chapter)