What was death?
It wasn't something he feared when he'd practically taken ownership of the darkness. It was surprising, and suffocating, like a noose tied around one's neck a little too tight.
A space where no sounds existed, somewhere between existing and not existing.
It was a feeling that sometimes, as he walked down the streets alone, he felt. And when he felt that overwhelming disconnection to reality while his eyes were open, victim to the brightness of the skies, it felt more lonely than anything else.
Ren Suzuki, the reaper who died more times than he killed, found a strange solace in death.
This was the calmest he'd ever been.
Time slowed, he slowed. His movements felt sluggish, but maybe they weren't. Maybe to the bystander watching, the observing eyes that could never, ever, understand what it was that he was thinking, thought he was moving fast.
Maybe a watcher would be scared, anxious for the next move. From either of them. Worried as to who would live or die, panicked to see the ending of the battle.
But the once reaper of the apocalypse who wanted to die more than anything, now prince of this kingdom who longed for the life he obtained, felt utterly calm.
Because he knew he wouldn't lose.
As the King's blade fell down, Soren's eyes snapped open and the blade around his arm jutted up, piercing through soft flesh. His father — the King, the enemy, the Third Religion leader — flinched for the smallest of seconds, and his aim tilted.
The strange, glowing blade drove past Soren's eye, pain blooming violently as it jerked to the side and finally landed slammed into the floor sands, past ruffles of white hair.
Soren smiled.
The King gasped.
"This wasn't a battle you could ever win." He pushed forward, the slender blades of his chains going further through the man's chest as he stood up, watching the man fall to the side. "Your motive is lacking."
He yanked the blade out, watching as the red spread into the sand. The man wouldn't die so easily, no. He was stubborn, carrying many tricks up his sleeves. He couldn't have come this far if he didn't, couldn't be trying to reach the Gods if he had no cards to play.
But Soren didn't need to kill him — that was a task that too many others were all too willing to do. What Soren needed to do was something only he could, waiting at the top of the building.
He staggered to his feet, mind unsteady as his body was. The gash in his eye was sharp, and he would probably never see through it again.
"It hurts." muttered Soren absentmindedly, trudging past the fallen body of his enemy.
A hand snaked around his ankle, gripping with a final desperation. Pathetic. Humiliating. Hopeless. "I... will not let you save everybody."
"Okay." said Soren slowly, dragging his leg forward with a sudden tug. "I don't want to save everybody."
"Then... what are you..."
"But I want to save somebody."
To the very end, he wouldn't make saving the world his single desire. He wouldn't become a hero for the people, a god for them to worship. He wouldn't fall like Raphael did, that foolish, kind and utterly idiotic man.
He didn't need to.
Soren wasn't a hero, nor was he a villain. He was simply a human, willing to burn the world to ashes or lift it up from hell in order to protect what he wanted. And that was his reason for living.
"Ri...diculous... even to the end..."
"You're not going to die."
"That..."
"You'll find a way to live." Soren turned back, and crouched down, lowering his single frosty eye with careless indifference. This fallen man was nothing to him, and he would become nothing to the original too. "And when you open your eyes again, there'll be a dozen new blades pointing at you. And that's your punishment, for all that you've done. To run away from those who could've loved you, if you stopped being so blind."
He was tired of speaking, saying more than he intended. The prince stood up again, and walked away.
He didn't look back.
His eyes burned, his body ached, his mind was dull and he couldn't hear sounds anymore. It was like a faint, muffled crash in the background. It was the sound of surviving, and the sound of death. He couldn't hear it clearly anymore.
Each step up was long and dragging. Was a part of him scared of what solution he'd reach? Of the ending? He didn't think so, but he didn't really understand everything that was turning and twisting inside of him as he walked.
Maybe. Maybe he was scared. Maybe he was worried.
But what did it matter? Even fear couldn't stop him. How could fear tie him down, when he'd already broken free of death?
Another step. And another, and then another. This was unlike the apocalypse, when he'd have decided to kill himself and bring forth that cursed cycle again, resetting his body. He was protecting somebody now, and to do so, he needed to learn to protect himself.
His life wasn't recyclable anymore.
And suddenly he was sprinting, in large strides over two or three steps at a tide as the walls crumbled and changed, rebuilding or collapsing at his feet. However, the staircase that forced him forward was unchanging, always waiting with arms spread wide. Ready to embrace him.
The darkness of the stairs engulfed him every time he ducked under another arch, and back up the far too many steps. The bottom of the ocean was dim, illuminated by soft blankets of sun that could only reach so far.
"Hey!"
Soren cursed as a soldier broke into his view, then two more. They must've been planted as a backup plan, at least, to stall long enough for their leader to retaliate or rush up behind him.
There was no going back. He could only keep going up.
"Wait! Do not move, Soren Rosenbaum!"
Their fingers stretched out, swords drawn and too, too close. One was swung over his head and he fell to his feet, narrowly missing certain death. Or in his case, possible death. His eyes glanced around rapidly, iris' flickering before he ground his right foot into the sand.
A soldier lunged, yelling.
He catapulted through the air.
More specifically, sideways, through an open space in the fragile, temporary walls. He bursted through, particles scratching his skin and skidding through the air.
Stretching his weary arms far out, the chains rumbled to life and he dragged them up and over, tossing them to another wall that was just about to close. At the top tower, where his destination lied.
"Soren!" a voice screamed out, using all their energy even as their words were strained and tired.
The blade connected and he pulled himself forward, glancing back. The necromancer grinned back at him, ash wisps floating from her fingers and leading to several skeleton... were they human? They seemed to be the corpses of some creatures of the deep.
There weren't too many, but it was enough as they'd crash their tails against the enemy, falling to pieces of hundreds of bone before rearranging themselves back into life.
"You got this!" continued Alvara in the loudest voice she could, earning a sideways look from Damien who was in the center of the fight. Meeting Soren's eyes, he inclined his head slightly in a respectful nod, his very own 'good luck', and turned back to the fight.
Soren could hear them, even as he tumbled through the top tower, through the tiny gaps that had yet to close.
"Alvara, focus!" shouted Damien calmly, raising his voice over the noise.
Her fingers were shaking last Soren checked, and the use of her ability was draining. She nodded quickly. "Oh, sorry! Focusing now!"
Soren flung over, tumbling into a roll before slamming into a wall. A long, drawn out gasp. And a wince for good measure. When he snapped open his eyes, sprawled upside down as his back pressed against the wall, a pair of soulful onyx stared back to him.
"Little prince." breathed Raphael.
Soren tilted his head. "Hippo."
"Is this really the time to be calling me names?"
"You started it."
"Yes, but my nickname for you is cute." stated the man shamelessly, shaking his head in false helplessness. There was blood on his clothes, making the black cloth somehow even darker, splattered with the strange stench of death. "Don't you agree?"
"I don't."
"Well." Raphael sighed, and then he laughed, walking over to stretch out a hand for Soren to grab.
The prince took it.
He was pulled up to his feet, staggering when he was standing as his legs felt weak, like jelly as pain jolted at his every bone. Raphael grinned at him, but the smile was tired, worried and full of mundane thoughts. Soren only stared at him quietly, eyes tracing the slant of his jaw, the curve of his sharp eyes to his eyebrows.
Raphael was staring at the deep gash in his eye, the cut that was still bleeding out. He hissed, as if the wound was his own.
"...you fool." started Raphael with a soft sigh, the worry dripping out in waterfalls. "What mess did you get into while I wasn't watching?"
His hand brushed just underneath, causing Soren to flinch slightly. He reached his hand out to stop Raphael's from touching his face any further. "It's fine now."
"It's not."
"How did you get up here?" asked Soren curiously, changing the topic.
Raphael arched an eyebrow with an annoyed glare, before he shrugged, nodding to the wall. "I climbed."
"What?"
"I just climbed up. I don't recommend it though, it was pretty slippery and difficult to get a firm grip when all that sand was moving around."
"....."
As expected of this dazzling hero. Soren, admittedly, considered the idea of climbing directly up, but decided that it would be easier to use the stairs, considering how high the tower was. He had enough strength, but what would be left by the time he reached the top was probably negligible.
Although for the case of this stupid protagonist, it seemed his strength knew no bounds.
Raphael was still staring at his injury, but seemed to stop himself from saying anything else. The sooner everything was over, the sooner he could go back and tend to the injury.
"Anyway, little prince, I think what you're looking for is over there." Raphael turned to the middle of the room, standing on a solid sand pedestal that was inlaid with sparking clear jewels was a single sapphire. It was smoothed out and plain, somewhat dull compared to the strange castle they stood in.
He pulled himself out of Raphael's grasp, making his way to the sapphire. When his fingers grazed the surface, it bent out of shape and twisted around his hand like slime, wrapping around and slithering.
Finally, it settled in Soren's hand into a blooming rose.
Palms spread open. He stared at it. "Manipulation."
Raphael moved closer, peering closely. "Yeah, it looks like you can mold it into anything you want."
"I don't feel the same pain I felt before?"
"I guess it's more of a physical object than a manifestation like your other abilities. It technically belongs to you still, so whatever purpose you had for finding it should still be fulfilled." Raphael paused. "Although I still want to know, what purpose you had for it?"
Soren didn't answer, wrapping his fingers tightly around it until the edges bit into his skin, and a droplet of blood fell onto the blue rose. When he looked at it again, black has spread at the edges in fallen drops, as if the blood had transformed into wisps, burred within the sapphire.
Then the pain hit, rushing up his arm and filling his entire body.
The prince's eyes snapped wide open, and he doubled over, feeling a million needles pierce through his skin, stabbing, probing. Raphael rushed forward to catch him, frowning.
"Hey? Ren, what happened?"
"...It's fine." Soren let out a shaky breath as the jewel morphed again, shaping and twisting until a sole blade sat in his hand. Black, twisting wisps like vines over the pale blue gem knife.
He stood up, and the walls begun to crumble around him. The tower was falling apart.
Raphael stepped back, staring at Soren oddly. "Hey, are you sure you're alright, Ren?"
Soren took a step forward. He stretched out his hands, revealing the strange blade in the center. The pale blue of snowy oceans, and the deep black of the abyss. It seemed to be made of their souls, the both of them.
"Ren?" Raphael's voice seemed to be trembling now. And Soren hated it, hated that it was his actions that were causing the very thing he wanted to protect this foolish hero from.
Despair.
"Take it, Raphael."
"...I don't think I want to." said Raphael slowly, sounding so uncertain for once. Like the confidence that carried him so far was drained away with a single sound from Soren.
"Raphael."
"Ren, no. I'm willing to do a lot of things for you, but I don't want to take it."
Soren glanced down at the knife, and his shoulders slumped helplessly before he shook his head, lifting his chin to make sure his eyes never left Raphael. "I'm sorry."
"Don't say that."
"I'm sorry, Raphael."
"Stop!" snapped Raphael, turning away, but the room was closed off except for the crumbling walls, and there was nowhere to go but to fall. "If I let you say sorry, it means there's something you have to apologize for. Don't do anything you'll have to apologize for, little fool."
Soren hesitated. And he closed his eyes, not moving from his spot.
There were two things that happened when he drank from that vial. A conversation with the Death God, and a memory he didn't think he wanted to know. Of his idiocy, of his end.
The former played back in his mind.
When he was sent to that black space that seemed dragging in his mind, but mere moments in reality.
[Ren Suzuki. Soren Rosenbaum. You are an idiot.]
Soren stared into the darkness. "I know."
[I didn't actually expect you to choose this. I hoped you wouldn't. Are you stupid?]
"Aren't you stupid for doing the same the first time?" retorted the prince carelessly, falling onto his back as he gazed into the abyss tiredly. "I know what I'm doing."
[You don't.]
"I do."
[...my title may seem the most brilliant, but I am one of the weakest. It's not that easy, no matter how strong you were as a human. I stood at the top of the world then, and now I'm at the bottom.]
"I don't need to be strong." Soren shook his head, breathing softly. "I just need to protect them."
[You won't live forever. Your immortality had a time limit, and as a God, it doesn't prevent your demise."
"I don't want to live forever." Of course the Death God knew that, better than anyone else did.
[You have collected the remanents of worship from the tattoos, and those who honour your names across the lands. There's also the worship from your... comrades. With the tattoos, you have also collected power. You are eligible.]
"I know."
[But there is one thing you don't know.]
A frown appeared on the prince's face, and he furrowed his brows. "What?"
[To become a God, you must abandon your humanity. You have to give up on the world. You need to prove that there is nothing tying you down.]
"...what?"
[You need to die a human, to live as a God.]
"And...?"
[The one who kills you must be the one who ties you down to reality.]