A faint pulse, the ground trembling beneath them.
It began as a tremor—a guttural rumble that thrummed through the ground like a heartbeat.
Then came the rupture.
Ren stepped away from Nocstella's beaten body, unsure of the situation presented.
From the broken ground beneath Nocstella's crumpled form, black ink exploded upward, screaming into the air like a geyser. It was a flood of writhing shadow tendrils, thicker than the blackened trees, coiling and slamming into the ground with tectonic force.
Ren staggered back as one of the tendrils crashed where he'd been standing, pulverising the soil with a single touch. He rolled back to his feet, breath torn straight out of his chest, and looked up just in time to see her—Nocstella—lifted from the ground.
Dark tendrils snapped tight around her wrists and ankles, hoisting her body upright—cruciform—as if some other force had risen beneath the glade and claimed her for itself.
She wasn't moving.
Her limbs hung limp. Her mouth remained slack. Her eyes sealed shut. But the shadows cradled her—tender, reverent, like hands worshiping their god.
A voice rose from her barely parted lips, nearly inaudible.
"Caedros…you answer me, still…"
Then the ink—that impossibly black ink—began to pour into her, siphoning into her veins.
Nocstella's body seized, rigid and still, like she was now completely paralyzed.
Then—
Her body had completely healed. Every punch that Ren landed meant nothing anymore.
From Nocstella, she spoke again. But this time her voice was different. It was layered, like a man and a woman were each talking at the same time. "The debt has been acknowledged...The cost, to be tallied...The vessel, accepted...The trade, immutable."
Her body lowered slowly, pitch-black hair floating upward in waves as though she were submerged in a deep, unseen water. Her toes hovered just inches above the grass.
Nocstella spoke softly, her voice now hers alone.
"So this...is the weight of your favor."
And then her eyes opened.
They were no longer crimson and delicate. No, they were pitch black. From them, a thick, black ink leaked at the corners and spilled down her cheeks like tears.
Ren felt the hate twist in his chest again. That same pressure he'd swallowed ever since the first blow landed. He moved without even thinking about it.\
"Kill her..."
Ren charged like a beast freed from its cage.
"Kill her..."
Nocstella didn't move. Her arms still hung loose at her sides, black ink drifting from her fingertips. Her hair still fanned upward in slow motion.
Ren reached her and threw a punch with everything left in him.
His fist collided, the bones in his hand shattering on impact. Something beneath the surface of her skin had changed. Just where Ren made contact, under her flesh, black ink-veins had pooled at that exact point.
Ren didn't care.
Blood burst from his knuckles as he swung again and again, but to no avail.
And then—
Squelch
A tendril of ink lashed forward and impaled him, puncturing his chest cavity. Blood poured from the gaping wound, soaking the grass beneath him in seconds.
Ren gritted his teeth and clawed at the tendril inside him, his nails tearing off trying to grip it. But the tendrils weren't the same anymore. It was subtle, but the tendrils now had that same ink inside them. Those before her awakening were nothing compared to these, like they weren't fully completed yet.
He had hovered in the air for a moment before it twisted, snapping him in half by his spine.
Darkness
He woke with a gasp, face down in the grass, lungs filling all at once.
"Kill her..."
He didn't wait.
He screamed this time, charging in with his shoulders lowered.
Nocstella still hadn't moved.
As he sprinted towards her, a tendril whipped from behind him. It cut through his abdomen, bisecting him from the stomach up. Before he could even register it, he was split in two.
Breath
Ren was back.
His arm trembled beneath him, barely able to push himself upright from the ground. He hadn't even looked up yet—just charged.
"Kill her…"
The words rang like instinct now, not thought.
Ren screamed as he reached her, slamming his fist toward her jaw.
She caught his wrist, delicate fingers curled like a lover's touch.
But then—pressure.
Her grip tightened, and her fingernails sank into his flesh, slicing through skin and tendon. Ren snarled and tried to yank his arm free, but her fingers remained locked. She leaned in, and though her body still hovered inches above the ground, her breath grazed his skin.
"You think a thing like you deserves to touch me?"
Ren clenched his teeth and tried to punch her with his free arm. It didn't even land—another tendril shot upward from the ground and caught it mid-swing, curling around it like a snake.
"Think you can defeat me...an Overseer?!" Her voice was low and furious, trembling with something beyond anger—something like betrayal. "You're Hollow...Nothing!
"You became a Respondent by some accident, some mistake, some cursed flaw in the vale's design." A bitter laugh—harsh and cracked—trembled at the edge of her words. "I should have ended you long ago...Before you even clawed your way this close."
"Yet, you haven't...I'm still here." Ren thought to himself.
But Nocstella could still hear his thoughts and responded swiftly.
"You dare think yourself anything more than a hollow vessel?" Her voice dripped venom.
In an instant, her fingers constricted with cruel precision. The bones in Ren's wrist shattered.
Then—
Rip
Nocstella ripped his arm clean off, the tendril holding the other doing just the same.
Ren's scream ripped through the glade, stumbling back from the lack of balance.
But before Ren could hit the ground, a tendril surged up from behind
Squelch
It slammed through the back of his skull, his vision fracturing into shards.
Hovering above, Nocstella's inked form was serene.
Her voice cut through to him—low, cruel, final.
"Hollow...drown in the emptiness you embody."
It was in that moment, Ren went limp once again.