He spread his arms wide, as if embracing the skyless heavens.
"Brother,
wake up,
it is
time."
Then—
One eye shifted.
The deep crimson faded—half replaced by a spiral of grey laced with purple light.
"…Brother… this..." he whispered, not to her, but she knew... "...It seems your plan has worked."
Tiana knew exactly who he meant. There was only one whom The Monster calls brother with that tone.
"Yes... Indeed… it has..." His mouth... his face... it was strange, how could a face show two different sides at the same time?
Something in Mercy's soul recoiled.
"…Fooling Heaven
and Earth…
Gods and Mortals…
even us.
All of us…"
He clapped.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
His hands rose again, as if offering praise to the empty sky, no, to the "empty" guy within.
The sound echoed— so did the next one...
"Ahaha… AHAHAHA—it indeed seems so, victory, the ultimate, our victory… OURS, brother! We fooled... We fooled them all! Everyone!!"
His head tilted toward the empty sky. Oh, how cold were his empty eyes.
"Ahaha… We fooled them all! ALL I SAY, EVERYONE! HAhahahahahah—!"
Now, even Tiana felt like running away again, she recognized it, this tone was the same, even though this strange behavior, there is only one who would radiate this cold, this cold that's not cold at all, something that doesn't feel like but is the exact opposite of The Monster.
But... this behavior was bizarre. She never once saw The Original display such a side.
Suddenly—
A voice. Rough. Deep.
Tiana and Mercy couldn't hear it.
It echoed in his—their mind alone, within the sea, within the dark. "…Fooled…?"
"…You!?" Monster's voice sizzled like embers.
"Who did you fool…? What do you mean...?"
"This slithering worm, I really should just kill it!"
"Leave the threats, brother. If you had wanted to, you would have done so, or at least tried. A helping hand, even if annoying, should never be harmed. Your words still...
Hey, you black thing, you have not shown malice to us such that we tolerate your prying eyes, and as a gift for your help, we shall answer."
The voice that answered was not one.
But two.
"Who did we fool...?" Monster.
And the Original.
"EVERYONE."
The world, the dark rippled with that word.
The deep voice went silent.
Too silent.
Even his thoughts recoiled inward. Everyone... how could you fool everyone... even yourself!?
To fool everyone, everything must be a lie... For everything to be a lie... nothing has to be, and such a lie it must be reality, only when revealed will it be a lie... the ultimate lie has to be certain, that's reality, something that is true.
'You... you... That's... it can not be... you... from where, what point in time...'
"From the moment we felt their laughing and joyful gazes, from the moment they began to enjoy our pained world, we were certain.
We had already won, HAHAHAH AHAHAH!"
'All of that time...You fooled yourself, them, all of them, everyone... all that time...all those lives... wasted... the pains endured... it was, all of it was just for a plan...'
And for a moment—just a moment—there was no more noise. No breath. No ripple. Only...
Dread. Dread shown from a being that would be feared by all, just from a glance... he feared one boy...
But then—Monster's eyes snapped to the mirroring sea beneath him.
The grey-purple eye squinted.
Monster's voice hissed through clenched teeth.
"You… Brother.
You're trying to push me down again—AGAIN!?" From the purple eye, soft light pulsed. Then a second voice flowed from his throat, laced with a strange restraint.
"Brother… we just returned. This is not your time. This is our beginning."
"Beginning?" Monster's voice warped, distorted.
His body trembled.
"This sin-filled pit of rot? This world is so rotten I feel disgusted from standing on its soil... This is our beginning?!"
He raised his hand skyward.
The sea answered.
The blood beneath rippled as if the sky itself was pulling and pushing it up and down.
"You just woke up, Brother…" Monster hissed, his voice deeper, fraying at the edges. "You won't have enough strength to suppress me."
"No! Don't do it!" the second voice barked—Original's voice. For the first time, truly disturbed.
Tiana gasped.
She felt it.
Even from here.
The weight behind that hand reaching towards the Heavens…
It was going to fall.
"This world…" Monster whispered.
His fingers curled.
"I shall drown this world!"
And the fist began to descend.
Slow.
Heavy.
No speed—no mass.
From will alone, the sky cracked. Pressure so heavy the Red Sea below split to receive it.
Tiana froze, just like time did. Gravity increased a hundred - a thousandfold. The sea compressed more and more, all of them falling with the sinking sea.
Tiana could hear the pained Mercy screaming in her chest.
They couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
And still, the fist just kept falling.
'Everything... everything will die...' Tears formed in Tiana's eyes... how could it all end so suddenly...
'Uh...? How... how are you moving...?' Tiana's gaze trembled as she felt her/their body move.
'I... I can't let my...' Steps taken, such heavy steps, the sea that only moved for the Monster before, rippled below her.
'How... the world should bind us still... how...'
'I made a promise to myself...
I won't let him fall into guilt once more...
I was scared... I am afraid... but I see now... those eyes, I remember them now... I have seen him before... my hero...' Her legs gave in only a step away...
'He is my hero...' Her arms still pull her body forward, towards the fist, ready to kill everyone.
"No..." A word spoken... but who could speak... in a world suppressed under frozen time and insurmountable weight.
The fist kept falling.
Until—the words unfolded.
"Do not... break your promise..."
It stopped.
Just above the sea.
A heartbeat away from the souls below. Just short of caressing her skin.
Mercy collapsed.
Tiana collapsed.
Their soul trembled from the pressure of nearly being ended.
The fist did not move anymore.
Not because it was stopped, but because he chose to stop, and the moment it froze mid-air.
The light faded from both eyes of the Monster, and the gray purple fully took over.
The Original finally rose.
As he stood up and straightened himself, like it was just a mirage mist scattered, everything returned to the way it was before, the sea faded, the tree withered, the bleeding moon shone its true and bright white light.
The sky and the world no longer broken, but still, the lives already ended, their bodies stayed, so did the already dead earth below his feet.
'Who would have thought... Monster would regain almost all his strength... and on top of that... that I would be helped by a fading spirit and a girl...' As the chains still locked around his body fell down, Original looked into the night sky, his cool finally returned.
"We are of equal strength, but today, if not for you, I would have lost... Rest well, brother, Liam was it... You saved everyone... thank you."
'Sigh... thanks to Monster stopping that punch and withstanding the recoil of it, I could surpass him just fine, but I need to lock him in now...' Thinking such, Original called out. "Reason..."
'Yes...?'
'I am sorry you just woke up and I am already ordering you, but take care of things outside.' Looking down at his feet at the unconscious Mercy.
'Do as you see fit, but... protect the girl.'
"Understood." With this, without even a moment's notice, even the Original faded from sight.
And now... The one who remained, a face, a body as cold as ice, almost dead eyes yet shining one silver, one gold light, he was the Reason.
'Hmh... memory is fuzzy, let me get things clear.' Rubbing his forehead, Reason recited the memory he had just received.
'Bandits attacked in the middle of the night, we went down to protect the villagers, but then heard this girl scream, rushed back, attacked the leader then died. Monster woke up, killed everyone. Original pushed him down, and now we are here... Reasonably eventful night.'
"Ugh..."
'Oh, she is waking up so soon? This girl has some serious willpower....
Hmh? This sound...'
...
A few moments prior.
"What the fuck..." A bandit walked into the scene where the three bandits awakened a beast.
"Vice Boss!!" Turning back, the bandit called out.
"The fuck are you screaming for? I am right here beh-
The fuck...?" A long brown brown-haired man with a saber in hand spoke up but also instantly froze. His man, one's stomach turned inside out, the other's neck ripped out.
"Uh? Rhea?" He noticed the woman sitting in the dark corner of the street, but she did not answer his call. Stepping before her, he called again as he shook her.
"Rhea, what the hell happened here? How are Joren and Lenrick dead, who... what did this!?" A fear-filled hesitation flickered in his eyes, wondering if it was even a human that did this.
They did kill people and some of them did torment others, but there were clear signs of struggle, dying-killing, in such a way, it would far be too cruel.
"Mo..."
"Hm?" The woman spoke, but her words were too broken to understand. "Rhea, pull yourself together, you're not like this."
"Mon... Monster..."
"Monster? So it really wasn't human, where did it go?" For that, there were no words, only her stretched out arm pointing towards the house on the hill.
"Vice, didn't the Boss go there for the job? Wouldn't he deal with it easily?"
"The job... Fuck, it does not matter how a monster got here, but we shouldn't risk anything. Leon, go inform the others of what happened. I need at least ten and two more to take Rhea away, but the others should hurry and pack up the haul we need to get onto the forest path before dawn."
"Undrestood, I'll be right back with the others."
'Fuck... fuck... why is everything turning on its head now? We were running from those monsters coming out, and if this is actually one of those monsters from the depths, we are fucked, completely fucked... fuck... but I never heard of any of them coming to these parts before. We really need to hurry."
...
Eleven of them were rushing up the hill, all of them fully prepared for a bloody battle... but the moment the leading vice boss stepped up to the top and halted, all of them soon followed.
"Fuck!!" The battle has already been decided, and the ones lying on the ground were their comrades, each one's head separate from their body.
"Boss... the boss is dead...?" Even their boss wasn't any different.
"FUCK!!"
"Vice..." One of the ten called out to him.
"What!?" The long-haired man clearly lost his cool from seeing this much blood.
"Tracks..." The bandit was clearly a tracker. His first instinct after seeing the bloodshed was to look for tracks, and he also found them.
"Uh?" The vice stepped forward, beside the kneeling tracker, right before a strange patch of sand, and the many chains lying around, clear heavy steps leading from them, towards none other than the dark forest.
"What do you say..."
"Hmh... It's large and also too deep for it to be one human weight... so it's either that monster or..."
"The two targets, probably the huge man carrying the girl..."
"Yes..."
"Than that monster..."
"While we were rushing up, I was searching for monster tracks, but I saw nothing... only..."
"Only?"
"I am not sure, but the freshest ones still seemed to be these similar shoe tracks..."
"What you're saying is..."
"I don't know if that monster what Rhea said is real, but the only possible monster would be that huge man..."
"So we either have someone who can transform or just a brutal man... sigh, that's actually for the better... thanks, Ralph." Finally getting some time and a clear mind, the Vice boss calmed down, patting the tracker on the shoulder.
"No problem, Vice, we have to take revenge on the ones who disrespected our boss and crew."
"Will do... will do... Hey everyone!" To his call, the others quickly looked up from searching the field.
"Listen up! Someone slaughtered our men like animals. The Boss included.
You want revenge? You want blood?
That huge bastard and the girl—maybe he's a man, maybe a monster. I don't give a fuck.
They're still our job.
Track them. Kill them if you want.
But if you've got the balls to bring them in alive, we still get paid.
Now MOVE!"