Sempiternity (COMPLETED)

XVI

“Tell me what’s going on,” Arend cried into the abyss. “What I just saw… What I felt! It went beyond the powers of a Key. That was real…!” The boy’s hands were out of his pockets now, and alternated between forming tight fists and open vices. His hair had been tossled by the wind as he fell, but now his flaxen locks sat messily atop his sweating forehead.

“You haven’t caught on yet?” asked the voice from the darkness. “To think you’d assumed the Gates of Paradise would open without a trial…”

“What are you talking about?!” Arend exploded. “This is not Heaven! I am not trying to go anywhere! All I want to do is kill you all – end it all! – so why won’t you let me just do that? Let me have my way, just once!”

“But I am,” countered the voice. “Longing is beauty, as separation is fate. That’s what he told me… Is it not the truth?”

“You bas-“ 

“Master,” Klaytaza interjected with a hand upon Arend’s bicep. The boy whirled to her with a visage of rage, but his aggression melted upon seeing Klaytaza’s eternally stoic appearance. She tilted her head slightly. “There is no time to converse with the enemy. Not anymore.”

  Arend stared at her for a moment, his eyes uncomprehending. Never before had she interfered with him or his discussions, and never before had she shown any concern for time. She was always supremely confident in him and his decisions, sometimes painfully so. What, then, did this mean? Was she losing her confidence in him, or was the end really that close?

He assumed it was the latter. As the Key who held dominion over Time, it was not too far-fetched to believe that Klaytaza was in-tune with the intricacies of it, and would be able to foresee its collapse.

“You’re right,” Arend stated with a sigh as he turned and wiped at his forehead with his arm. “You love me, don’t you, Klaytaza?”

“Of course, my Master.” 

This time Arend believed it.

“If your heart hopes to dance to the haunting song of Vizrupaksa, study what her friend said about Adam suffering Eve’s desertion.” The voice’s smirk was almost palpable; it spoke with supreme condescension. “A bastardization of the chronicle, perhaps… But the meaning, unchanged! They deceive, they all deceive… We all deceive!”

“Enough of your babbling,” Arend stated as Klaytaza summoned the blade to her hands. “We will handle you soon. Step forward, next one.”

The voice audibly chuckled. “You are disconnected… but we are all connected, through Him. Very well. Come,” spoke the absent voice, and so the Key in the black armor stepped forward. “A quart of wheat for a denarius. A song for the vanished. A laugh for the vanished. A judgment for those who sin, when the only sin is birth. Preserve: New Era Sepulcher: Delphinus, the third Chandrasekhar limit!”

The black Key held a scale and a scepter. It had the appearance of a wizened old man with balding hair and beady, piercing eyes, despite the relative youth of its eternal body. The Master for this Key was a short boy with uncut dark violet hair that teased around his eyes and face. Most notable about the Master was the fact that his arms were restrained in a black straitjacket. His mask and nose were covered by a half leather gimp mask, leaving only his dead eyes to stare out from below his hair.

Without wasting a moment, Klaytaza jumped forward, blade aimed to impale right through the Master. He simply blinked at this, and before the attack could be done, Klaytaza seemed to stop in the air for a short moment. Immediately afterwards, she was nowhere to be found.

Arend’s face fell as he looked around for the disappeared Klaytaza. He found her standing behind her, right where she was before she started to attack.