Cross Effects > Areas

The Great Southern Sea

<< < (8/8)

SINIB:

--- Quote from: Kotomine_Rin on March 26, 2021, 12:19:26 AM ---The Replaceable One

If there was strength left in that body, it'd had left one final shout as flames ripped its flesh from the inside. Instead, it convulsed one final time while it burnt from the inside and the outside, until it looked like nothing more than a charcoal puppet whose strings had been cut.

But perhaps there was a final spark left.

Its arm moved. Was it an attack? A final act of resistance? Did it laugh in its final moment of illogical life, or did it curse its fate? In the face of this senseless violence, all you could really feel was empty.

"...cold..."

But the strike never came. It just weakly hung onto the little girl, trying to hug her in its final moments. There was a faint warmth to it even while it cooked to death.

And then there was nothing.

And the mud keeps pouring.

--- End quote ---


Ivanna

The angel's arm hung limp against her side, a bone poking out of her battered form. She panted. Pain blossomed all over her form.

It hurts. The motivating rage gone, the angel felt full of emptiness, alone, all too aware of her lord's absence in this moment.

As flames burst out, enveloping the area in holy retribution, she begins to think back upon her life. How an exalted one such as herself had been reduced to such a pitiable state.

Kotomine_Rin:
The Replaceable Ones

Flames burnt away at the pouring mud, attempting to seal the hole.  Even so, with all that strength, it only made the hole larger. Her wish to be rid of this evil was the source of the evil in the first place. It was exactly as that man said, the grace only acted in response to the wish of a host. It didn't need to be a parasitic one though. Her wrath, her pride, it was all reflected into the future. A twisted mirror of her choices up to now.

No. The twisted one was also her.

As long as she wished to destroy evil and sin, there would be filth to purge in this land. Even when there wasn't any to begin with. Especially when there wasn't any to begin with. The only solution would've been -

"It's pitiable. Sometimes, inaction is the best course of action." A robotic, monotone voice echoed from the one thing Ivanna didn't burn completely. The golden eye implanted into him, the Reaper's Eye... it still whirred, even when its host was naught but charcoal. "Ah, don't bother. Striking anything at this point is useless, this is merely a pre recorded message. Consider it my... contingency plan. If you can hear this, o mighty Seraph... you surely understand the position the world is in."

The burnt corpses were purged, thrown back into the abyss that created them. And from the mud overflowing into the seas, giant beasts emerged, gentle sleeping giants that hadn't awoken in so long. Some cooed, others glanced at Ivanna in curiosity. Most of them started to roam away and consume biomass nearby, ignoring her completely until the flames spread to them too.

Much like the graces in that forest, they didn't fight back at all. Some even tried to flee, or protect their young, merely survive. But you can't let that happen, can you? Because you're the hero of this story.

"I apologize, my other half made a disservice to you. See, those things you were so eager to destroy... they're not like children. They are children. Ah, forgive me if it is information already granted to you. I merely wish for you to suffer. You, personally."

A giant roared meekly, trying to stop the pain of the flames, sending a massive fist Ivanna's way. Too slowly, far too slowly. It was a struggle, useless as it was. But the only one who could decide that was Ivanna. After all this wrath, after all of this, there should have been relief. There should have been something beyond this hell, something Zeke or Ivanna saw, something that made everything worth it. If all this violence somehow saved her people, she'd have surely been able to forgive herself.

And we can't allow that.

SINIB:
Ivanna

The lack of responce didn't bother the angel, no. She'd slaughtered masses of children, destroyed cities, all for her lord. She didn't feel any remorse for doing what must be done.

Then why did her heart ache such? Why were tears glistening in her eyes.

In a simple act of defiance, Ivanna's arms fell limp against her sides. "I'm so tired. Your words mean little to one such as me—what are the lives of a few children in service to the lord?" The angel remarked with a raised eyebrow. Then a tired sigh. She waved him away with a dismissive glare.

"Begone from my sight."

Then, Zeke burst into flames, flames which refused to be extinguished like the previous ones. "I wish to meditate, to heal this broken world. You could scarcely understand my pain, so alien you are to it."

Kotomine_Rin:
Zeke

But of course, the flames that broke into the charred corpse couldn't silence it. Couldn't silence the dead. Couldn't silence the one who didn't speak, or the voices of guilt in her head. But they did break it. Slowly, surely, it sounded less and less human. More and more like an automaton, a thing made to act and be destroyed in turn.

Maybe it would have made things better if it was the truth.

It was her right to see things that way. Her truth was only what she wished to believe. Anything else was unnecessary.

"Ku ku ku... so that is your answer.... fuhuhu... hahahahahaha!"

The giant stood no chance against her and the flames either, wailing as its arm split in two just from trying to strike her, burning until it too was naught but ash.

"But I do. You really are no different, no different than me. You see it as I do, the way this world squirms and rots... it must be fixed by someone, must it not? If we allow it to endure... it will end, and the ones we promised to protect fall with it. No, we cannot... we must not allow it to happen. Just as you have your people and truth to protect, I have mine."

Burning. Robotic. Hateful. Yet... sad, very sad. Because there must have been a way to make things right, but now it will never happen. Because now, the future is set, and the mud will pour before the fire forevermore. Until they end up extinguishing one another. Such is the tragic game the gods have decided.

If they wished to refuse it, all they had to do was fight it.

"My poor son... my Zeke ... you were tied to such useless things ... trying to free yourselves from this fate. If only you spoke of your true intentions, perhaps... ku ku ku... but if so, then the Elven one would have known of your betrayal, mhhh? How deplorable, to think my own flesh and blood would debase himself so to work with an angel. Even if Ivanna allowed it, did you really think I would, mhhhh? No. I will not make this mistake. Our wish, our endings are irreconciliable. You know this, as do I. So let us drop the pretenses. My people, my truth, against yours... Ivanna. It will not end until one of us do."

And finally, the hole in the sky burnt away too. Zeke. The eye. All of it, destroyed by Ivanna, gone forevermore.

But from ash, new life will emerge. Far more terrible than a meager message from the old world.

"This is... a declaration of war..."

And thus, the prologue ends.  And all that's left is a girl, crying alone amidst the ancient corpses.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page