A terrified scream rolls across the increasingly bloodstained area, snapping Alto out of her stupor. Her gaze drifts to the source – several young women she recognizes from their elven outreach group, who are currently being surrounded by a number of humans with swords. Her gaze sharpens, finally finding the resolve to move despite the various, debilitating emotions swirling inside her.
She launches herself towards the group of women. However, the burly man who killed Traz steps into her path, smiling maliciously.
"Where do you think you're go-" (burly man)
She doesn't even slow down. A quiet whisper escapes her lips, and an earthen spike erupts from the ground, piercing the man's brain in an instant. As his body drops to the ground with a heavy thud, she briefly considers how that's the first person she's ever killed. Fortunate in its own sick way, however, she's been left numb from Belle's gruesome and unexpected death. Too numb to be scared, to falter...to feel remorse.
With another brief incantation, a gust of wind launches her into the air...and she starts chanting furiously. Innumerable, large shards of rock begin coalescing in the sky around her. For a brief moment, it's as though she's frozen in midair like that, her eyes taking in the details of the horrific scene below.
Numerous wolf-kin and elf corpses are strewn about, several groups of women are being slowly surrounded by the human invaders, and wolf-kin children are in the process of being shoved into some caged cart, screaming and crying desperately for help. Amidst it all, just below her, Belle's bloody corpse still rests, staring up at her with a haunting expression. Her lip quivers at the sight, her gaze drifting away to the humans below watching her with alarmed expressions, and her eyes turn colder.
"She deserved to live more than any of you..." (Alto)
The rock shards around her blast downward without warning, tearing into the bodies of over a dozen humans without mercy. Blood and gore fly freely while she falls back to the earth, landing gracefully as shouts of alarm and anger erupt from the other humans around her.
"Over there!"
"That one's a mage!"
"Surround her!"
Of course, she doesn't give them a chance to do such a thing. As soon as she lands, she's already casting two more spells. A wind barrier to deflect incoming projectiles, and another large-scale rock bullet spell to target humans with minimal collateral.
TINK, TINK! TINK, TINK, TINK!
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
Sounds of arrows deflecting off her barrier and her rock bullets slicing through the air overlap in a cacophony of violence, only punctuated by the screams of her victims. She dashes across the battlefield, summoning spell after spell of rock bullets, raining death on any humans she sees. The time that passes, the number of lives she reaps – she loses track of them, stuck in a fugue state fueled by anger and loss, until...
"STOP!"
A commanding voice breaks through the fog that had enveloped her mind. She blinks, focusing on its source, and the sight makes her freeze.
Three humans stand a short distance away from her, spread out from one another, with each holding a wolf-kin child or an elf in front of them at knife point. Her gaze sharpens, their intent immediately clear to her.
The man in the middle who initially yelled, seeing that he now has her attention, yanks on the hair of the wolf-kin girl he's holding, pressing his knife hard enough to draw blood from her neck. As the child screams in pain in response, the man stares at Alto resolutely, his voice threatening.
"Stop your spells, or their blood's on your hands!"
She stares at the man in silence for a moment, not dropping her spells immediately. For one, she knows that if she acquiesces, they'll all be either killed or kidnapped anyway, with the latter potentially ending in a fate worse than death. Furthermore, she's not entirely sure that the men actually will kill their hostages if she refuses, since doing so would remove their 'shield' and grant them certain death at her hand.
However, as she's considering these points, the man suddenly yells again, not breaking eye contact with her.
"Simon!"
Before she can fully register what's happening, the man in the trio that's holding the elven woman hostage suddenly yanks his dagger laterally, slicing the poor young woman's throat open. The motion is so quick, so violent, that the elf doesn't even have a chance to scream without choking on her own blood...seconds before her body crumples lifelessly.
Alto's blood runs cold in shock and horror, unable to do more than stare at the dead young woman with feelings of remorse bubbling forth. However, that's soon replaced by an intense rage, and she prepares to launch rock bullets into all the men's heads. But...the main guy yells at her again, his voice firm.
"Don't even think about it!"
As if to emphasize his point, he yanks on the wolf-kin child again, dragging his dagger lightly across the girl's neck, and her screams cause Alto to freeze. She stares at the man, her rage and thirst for retribution clashing with her empathy for the children, leaving her conflicted about what to do...if only for a moment.
She drops all of her spells, glaring at the man hatefully. Seeing her response, the man appears to breathe a sigh of relief, then he smiles and nods.
"Good! Now walk this way slowly, and don't let me see that mouth of yours move!" (Alto)
She clenches her jaw, but begins walking towards the man. With every step, her mind churns with strategies...she has zero intention of going quietly. She just wants to wait for an opening where the two wolf-kin children have at least some chance of survival when she strikes.
Her walk forward continues steadily, her steps wet with the sound of blood underfoot, but she is laser focused on the man in front of her, her vision practically red with rage. Thoughts of ways to kill him and the other men occupy her mind, like an all-consuming desire. An overwhelming, distracting obsession.
She doesn't even sense the blow to the back of her head coming. There's only a sharp, unexpected pain before her thoughts cease and her vision blackens.
*****
In the next moment, she finds herself huddled inside a small cage, not unlike the one Mizuki first found her in. Released from being a mere spectator to her own memory, she immediately begins retching dryly, the carnage of Belle's death and her subsequent slaughter weighing on her in full force now. Tears begin to stream down her face, and when her empty stomach fails to produce anything from her retching, it slowly transitions to pained sobs. She presses her forehead against the cool ground below her, muttering to herself almost incoherently.
"I didn't...I didn't mean to...oh my gods! Belle...oh, Belle...I'm so sorry..." (Alto)
She remains like that for awhile, her only awareness of the pain in her chest and the sounds of her own cries. Eventually, as her eyes seemingly exhaust their tears, her surroundings come into focus. The area around the cage is covered in darkness, without discernible features. However, in front of her she sees her reflection. Yet, the reflection is strange, as though it's from the outside of the cage, but the bars in front of her are not reflected along with her own visage.
That's when the reflection moves...its head cocking to the side, an eerie grin spreading across its tear-stained face. It crawls towards the bars of her cage, and speaks to her in her own voice – cold, detached, yet somehow mocking.
"Look at you...all alone, with all this blood on your hands. You let the only person you claimed to love die, you let the ones she loved die, your cowardice got that poor girl's throat slit, and there's no telling just how many people you killed just to fail. Murderer...traitor to your family...broken little elf with no purpose of her own...perhaps this cage is what you deserve. Where you should die..." (reflection)
Alto freezes at the words...she remembers those sentiments all too well. How many times had she felt that way, after Belle died? As she was branded with the slave seal, as she was dragged across the human lands to her enslaved fate, as she rotted in a cage inside the Empire, wondering how long it'd be before one of the bolder guards came for her in the night.
She grabs her hair, pulling on it as she shakes her head.
"No, that's not true, I..." (Alto)
The kind of selective amnesia that one only experiences in their dreams suddenly lifts fully, granting her the mental image of a young man with vibrant green eyes and a kind smile. Memories of all the events since meeting Mizuki flood back to her, easing some of the lingering despair, and she suddenly finds herself elsewhere.
She's sitting near a bonfire in a forest clearing, a starry night sky spread out above her head. Beside her, a young man sits, staring at her patiently. It's a scene she remembers well...the night she met Mizuki, after he saved her. She'd been overcome with suspicion, concerned about his motivations and intentions for her and the other elves.
Her mouth suddenly moves, her words and actions once again involuntary.
"What do you...want from us?" (Alto)
The words escape her lips, the same way they did that night. Mizuki's eyes widen, as if startled from other thoughts, and he gives her a small smile. His gaze drifts to the night sky, humming thoughtfully as the fire crackles a short distance away.
"Hmm...what do I want, huh..." (Mizuki)
He looks back to her, a kind of earnest sadness in his eyes.
"I guess...I want you and the others to feel in control of your lives again. Ask for whatever you need, set whatever boundaries you want, and whenever this is all over and we've safely returned you to the lives you should have never been taken from...just forget. These awful experiences, any guilt you have, me and whatever debt you think you owe me...just forget it all. Honestly, that's the only thing I want, Alto." (Mizuki)
Much as it did that night, hearing his sentiments again in this flawed, paraphrased memory causes a wave of emotions to wash over her. Shock, skepticism, gratitude, and eventually...a profound sense that he understands her. She doesn't know if he meant to do it, or if it was just her traumatized mind latching onto meaning that might not have even been there, but the way he emphasized a desire for her and the other elves to feel in control of their own lives again really resonated with her.
Is that not what she's fundamentally sought since childhood? Since she realized autonomy was the thing she lacked most? Yet, once she'd finally felt like she'd found it in adulthood, it was snatched from her in a twisted fate of slavery. And then came Mizuki...on this night she's now reliving. Not helping by insisting that she do or accept any of the dozen things that she probably needed after being rescued, but instead offering to make whatever she felt she needed a reality, as if he knew that her and the others' sense of control was just as damaged yet vital as their bodies and minds.
Him...someone who she'd already begun to realize, even then, couldn't be forced to respect the wishes of anyone if he didn't want to.
'Maybe that's when it started...not wanting to part with him...'
As if that thought is the catalyst, the world around her shifts again.