CECILIA
I'm exhausted.
For hours, I've been fending off dozens, hundreds of asuras. The various loyal races of Epheotus began to be overpowered by the united front of Alacrya and the rebels, but it seems that Agrona acted in character. The Alacryans have betrayed us. Fortunately, we had a contingency plan. Seris is here somewhere and she has around a quarter of the total forces brought to Alacrya under her direct order, loyal to her and only her.
Arthur is fighting among the thousands of combatants with Kezess and Agrona. They've been going at it for a few minutes before their mana signatures rapidly flee the battlefield. I glance over to try and find where they're going, but they're moving so fast that I can only tell they're going in the general direction of where Indrath Castle is supposed to be.
"Don't!" I hear a voice ring out through the clamor. It's Aldir. "Arthur will be fine. We need you here or else there won't be asura to see the end of the rebellion."
Shit. I need to take care of things here quickly so I can try and help Arthur.
It's time to pull out all of the stops.
Gazing out at the huge concentration of mana entering the atmosphere as it leaks from the cores of dying asura, I bend it to my will.
Mold, bend, obey. I sort each mana particle in the air by its element. With the wind mana, I begin to rapidly increase the density of oxygen in the air as I disperse the water mana into the air to form a dense fog, obstructing most of the remaining bits of sunlight. With the earth mana, I raise the gravity in the area by over 150 times while creating earthen shackles at the ankles of my enemies. Lastly, with the fire mana, I reuse a trick I once tried on Arthur. I ignite the fire mana with a subtle spark that relentlessly burns through the heightened oxygen, creating a firestorm of blazing heat that threatens to melt even asuran weapons being wielded.
Aldir spectates as he convenes with Kordri. They've been instrumental thus far, having killed off two of Agrona's sovereigns as well as the new Vices, Aerind, and Mapellia clan heads. Only the new Lord Grandus, Wren's Uncle, and Aldir, the new Lord Thyestes remain alive to lead their clans. Lord Avignis and Lord Eccleiah perished in the battle against Lord Indrath at Indrath Council. Ever since this war has been raging nonstop. It's sure to only last a few more days until one side surrenders or there's no world left to rule over.
From among the carnage, nearly half of the asura from within my blast are still standing. Some 40% of those caught in the blast lay in shreds. Asura after asura continue to perish as I struggle to keep command of the battlefield. There are way too many asuras to try and leech mana from their cores. It's a strenuous talk on even one asura. The most I can possibly handle is around 25 but before me on this battlefield is upwards of 2500.
It's during all this havoc that I'm once again reminded of why I'm trying so hard.
Damn it. I need to get to Arthur.
"Aldir! Withdraw your troops from the west. The sun is about to look dim in comparison!" I demand as I begin to pull out my trump card. Humans from Alacrya, asura of Epheotus, and everything in between. All of them are to be sacrificed for the beginning of a new age and a new world.
Kordri bolts to my side, fending off Dragons who can see the work I'm doing with the ambient mana. "Continue as you are. I'll hold them off."
With Kordri's protection, I guide the fire, earth, and wind mana to a single point, amassing into a densely packed sphere. I refuse to stop until the Phoenixes, Sylphs, and Titans begin to struggle to pull enough ambient mana from the air to cast their spells.
And now to try something new.
Ever since I was placed within this body, within Xena's body, I've not been able to see aether, but I've been able to feel it. I can't force it as Arthur can, but I can ask it, beg it, plead to it.
Crush it. Crush the mana I've gathered. Compress it into nothing. Put it under the pressure it requires to make diamonds.
I can see it, the sphere I've created shrinks. It's halved, quartered, all the way down less than a percent of its original size.
Explode.
The aether rescinds, the fire mana combusts, the earth mana turns into steel, and the wind mana carries it away.
Launching in every direction, molten metal, that cools into red-hot shrapnel pierces into the enemy asura that remained on the western flank. The concussive blast threatens an earthquake as the ground beneath begins to rumble. The sheer brightness of my spell does just as I expected, it makes the sun look dim in comparison.
Asuras are reduced to atoms, mana cores are pierced with shrapnel moving faster than any bullet ever fired on Earth, and 'deities' feel pain beyond anything they imagined as their flesh melts away under the searing heat of molten metal.
I do this for what?
I create this much pain and suffering for what?
Is it truly for the greater good?
Is Arthur really any more right than Kezess or Agrona?
Is it right of us, two reincarnates, to judge this world based on the morality of our former one?
I can only have faith that the world won't resent us for their lost sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers. I can only hope they'll understand.
I'm coming, Arthur.
With a nod to Aldir, I take my leave from this section of the battle to find Arthur. The scarred landscape beneath me as I fly over serves a purpose to remind those who do come out of this alive of the trials and tribulations. This war doesn't really have a winner. I guess no war does.
I'm jerked from my thoughts as a beam of pure mana pierces directly through my right thigh. The searing pain is unlike anything I've ever experienced. I've sparred with Arthur in this life, and I've been trained by Trayden in my previous life, but never has such excruciating pain been inflicted upon me. I was always above injury.
I descend in altitude as I lose my concentration on flying, instead defaulting to tend to my wound. In the distance, I can see the faint outlines of two hulking creatures battling with a human beneath.
My body crashes into the cracked earth. Dust kicks up as the same earth I land in begins tremors from concussive blows to my north, east, south, and west. Everywhere on this continent hosts a piece of this war.
"AAAH!" I cry out as I caress my thigh. The beam shot directly through my thigh and completely through my femur. My leg is separated in two as the lower half loosely hangs with nothing to keep it firm.
Think, Cecilia, think. You're going to bleed out here if you don't act fast.
I have two options. One: cauterize it. Two: freeze it.
Fuck. I don't have the stomach to cauterize it, so freeze it is.
The ambient water mana condenses into a flash freeze within my leg. The ice seals off my leg and halts the bleeding. I even use the ice that meets with the bone to loosely reconnect it, allowing me to stand at the very least.
Through the agony, I rise to my feet and fly off once more toward Arthur and his battle at the foot of Mt. Geolus which is slowly making its way to the precipice. The split mountain loses fragments of itself as they sink into the crevice formed so long ago. The dim glow from the innards of the mountain slips out from the ravine and mirrors the setting sun in the west.
*BOOM*
A distant blast rocks the ground beneath and still manages to cause ringing in my mana-reinforced ears. In the distance, now rapidly approaching, Arthur stands shakily at the lip of the caldera. His two aether blades glimmer as beacons in the darkness as the red glow from the volcano shimmers off of Kezess' scales. On the contrary, Agrona's true form absorbs every particle of light, creating a void of black, an illusion.
It's whenever I can finally see the whites of Arthur's eyes through my mana-enhanced vision that he grimaces. His eyes lock onto mine as an expression of disappointment and guilt riddles his face. He looks at me as if he's trying to say something: to apologize.
Arthur is cast into the volcano, his mana core bereft of any contents.
----------------
ARTHUR LEYWIN
It appears I met my match.
As I slowly descend into the magma beneath, the sounds from Agrona and Kezess' continued battle can still be heard. Cecilia's face of shock as the two Asuran Lords cast me into a volcano breaks my heart. I know she could see me. Even though she was meant to stay on the battlefield to the west, she still came to help. She came to save me. All for naught. Now she has two of the most powerful beings in existence in her way before she could possibly reach me. I'll be completely melted away by the magma before she can find me.
Hopelessness. Despair.
Those two emotions ring true in my mind for the first time since I awoke in Alacrya. Unlike then, no determination arises.
I'm exhausted. I've fought so hard. I've come so far and this is a fitting end for a 'hero.' Dying mere moments before reaching the summit.
It burns.
A sensation I've felt before eats away at my exposed flesh as the heat and pain threaten to take my consciousness from me.
I close my eyes.
Images appear. Of my family, Mom and Ellie. Of the two that enraptured me, Tess and Cecilia. Of my two best friends, Regis and Sylvie. Of my allies, Caera, Seris, Aldir.
I let them down. I lied. I said I'd come back, but now I can't. I won't. Nothing will remain as the lava eats away at me.
The visions fade to grey.
'Welcome to the edge of reality, Child. We meet once again as was foretold. Please, take a journey with me.'
The grey separates at the horizon into its base components: black and white. The duality of Fate stands before me.
'Lives are not black and white, but Fate is. Objective good and bad happens over and over again resulting in the grey you experience. Objective black and white create the subjectivity you believe to exist. Hormones in your bloodstream and synapses in your brain are this objectivity. Things your brain doesn't even realize it controls.
'Your impulses which you define as opinion are, in fact, not so. They are merely a facade for your own ignorance of the deeper inner workings of your biochemistry. Things that mortals have yet to discover.
'When you find yourself hurt by another's actions, how do you define it?'
"I find it to be wrong."
'But what if they find it to be a right?'
The voice speaks in so many theoretics that it's hard to keep up. This androgynous, omnipresent sentience that manipulates the fabric of reality as I know it speaks in flowery language for what? Is this yet another test.
'It is. The world you reside in is dictated by perspective, by opinion. It is not so. Beneath the subjectivity you experience is objectivity you do not. Your emotion is driven by factors you do not understand, therefore you assign it a name to help you comprehend the fact that you don't comprehend.
'It is imperative that you grasp this concept if you wish to live. Your body lies in stasis. Your world lies in stasis. In order for you to see and experience it once more, you must understand. It is the reality of your world that you can't see. You are a blind man with perfect vision. Open your mind.'
"Do with me as you wish."
The black and white give way to color. Time finally begins to pass once again.
I'm in a hall. A familiar one.
Two boys around the age of thirteen have two strained looks on their faces. pieces of the ceiling crumble to the well-worn wooden floor beneath.
It's me again. And Nico. Is this?
The younger me grabs a glove from Nico and runs into an adjacent room.
I follow myself into the room to find myself reaching, trying my hardest to press a gloved hand to Cecilia's chest, but it never happens.
Beneath the weight of Cecilia's ki, the room collapses along with the rest of the orphanage.
'Decisions you make in life can affect so much. Mere fluctuations in the speed of your decisions can result in this outcome. You acted merely 0.6 seconds later than you had in the time you know to be reality. This is a parallel time in which you died here. There are countless experiences just like this. Here is another.'
The crumbled orphanage ceases to be as the scenery changes. I'm in a carriage on a dusty rural road. Myself in this life and my mother sit on the seat opposite me. I'm laying in her lap as she gently pets my head and plays with my hair, the epitome of motherly love.
This is our trip to Xyrus.
Glancing out of the window, the bandits never come. We effortlessly pass through. Days pass. I watch in disbelief as my family operates as I always had hoped. A young Arthur Leywin lays his head on his mother's pregnant belly, hoping to hear a sound or feel a kick.
'This is peace, tranquility. It could have happened had you left two days prior. Had you awakened just two days prior. This is the part where your biochemistry begins to blame itself. The would haves and could haves, yet your brain never conceptualizes that it didn't happen. It couldn't have happened because it is not the timeline you were assigned. It is not the Fate you were assigned. This is not your reality no matter how hard you try. Some things are not meant to be.
"Then why am I here. Why am I being tortured with visions of my lives as they could have been? Why am I being tortured with a life I wanted?"
'Because if you understand, you can have it. With the power to bend fate, you can make irreversible decisions. Your whims can become one with this reality. Wouldn't you want that? Wouldn't you want to see your father again? Would you not want to walk among the Elven forest once more with the Princess? Would you not want to mend the pain and suffering of Dicathen and Alacrya?'
"Of course, I want all of that. But it's in the past. How could any of that happen now? What would I have to do?"
'You must simply open your mind.'