"You know, it's a shame it had to end this way, Ezzie. I honestly believe we could've been friends in another life…"
Stein's serpentine eyes bore holes through the boy without even a hint of a waver, leaving him frozen in fear.
Aaron sat there in complete silence, staring at the cards that sprawled across the table.
A chance… One in nearly a million, yet he struck it perfectly in this game.
His thoughts raced as the silver-haired man walked towards a small oak cabinet that lay hidden in the corner of the room.
"Have you ever tried alcohol? Before you depart for the Great Beyond, I want us to drink like friends. Is that alright?"
Stein faced away from the disguised boy who would have liked to scream at him and fight it out. Yet, without Penelope, his hand-to-hand combat would be useless against an armed man, which left Aaron helpless.
In response to the man's question, he could only quietly murmur before a snicker came from the corner.
"Heh… Of course, someone so young wouldn't have drunk… Here you go, Ezzie!"
With a forced smile, the glass bottle of beer escaped the man's hand, soaring through the air aimed at Aaron's head.
Before reaching him and cracking his skull in two, the bottle stopped right in front of his eyes, as the black-haired boy, caught in disbelief, read the small red label that was sprawled across the side.
S-Sea terror ichor? T-This is only able to be harvested from the Apex level… This man… No, this monster has connections with Cosmoti, but who the hell else backs him? This is beyond something you can buy at a market…
Throughout the known depths of the seas, the fragments and pieces recovered from various sea terrors had been known to have strange effects when mixed with food.
Some from the Sea of Dreams had been known to cause powerful hypnosis, while a tiny bottle from a leviathan discovered in the Sea of Polar Storms had enough venom to kill thousands of sailors.
And yet, the strongest of the strong, an Apex-level terror, was at the pinnacle.
Many in history had tried to extract even a single drop of their sacred lifeblood; however, only the Sea Kings themselves and a few Marshals had succeeded.
The only known record of the effects was when a criminal mixed a heavily diluted bottle of whiskey into a river that fed into a town.
It seemed inconsequential at the time, yet only one day later, every single member of the small village disappeared.
Not even the Kings themselves could trace them.
It was as if they were simply gone, erased from the world.
And it was with this in mind that Aaron stared in horror at the murky green bottle of liquid that he held in his hand.
"Y-You expect me to drink this!?"
His startled words came out in a stutter, garnering a chuckle from Stein, who walked back to the poker table slowly.
Opening his mouth slowly in a grin, he spoke with joy sparkling after every word.
"I don't expect you to drink it, of course!"
The radiant smile glistened in the reflection of the ceiling lamp; however, with one nauseating flicker, his expression flattened into pure solace.
"You will drink it."
…
Far away from the Casino, a short black-haired boy held a coin between his fingers, twiddling it nervously.
Each moment that passed brought him closer to losing his patience with the only promise he had ever made, after that day, pulling on him like a noose.
The plan he had constructed with the blond-haired boy was a simple one with various contingencies that would prove effective.
However, the only possibility for Aaron's continued absence was the worst of the worst, the absolute ending that he should've avoided at all costs.
A betting game with the boss…
Breathing out in heavy pants, he strained his brow thinking at his maximum for the solution they had come up with together.
If all else was lost, and there was no chance of survival, an explosion of liquid turquoise light would fracture the sky, shake the earth, destroying any hope of his sister returning.
It was the absolute last option that Ezra had protested heavily against; however, Aaron's own personal interests were at risk without it.
The utter destruction of the underground with a sacrifice that prevents an event worse than I could ever imagine... What a way with words that idiot has…
A gust of wind brushed past the boy, making him tighten his scarf with the chill of the cold tugging at his nape.
"It's cold. Isn't it?"
With an explosion of pain in his left rib, Ezra slammed against the concrete wall, only able to turn and face his attacker.
W-Who the hell…
His vision waned and blurred. The only detail he could make out through the figure's hooded body was one object that shocked him to the very core.
"A… Marshal…"
…
Back in the underground, in a dead-silent room, the two figures stared at each other with hatred bubbling to the surface.
"I-I'm not crazy… Drinking this will send me over the edge and into the unknown!"
Aaron's shout echoed helplessly off the gilded walls, causing Stein to roll his eyes in irritation.
His fingers drooped down to his belt, where he quickly drew a short dagger and a large flintlock, each being balanced precariously between his hands.
"Look at you… Thinking you have a choice in this!"
As soon as it had come, his flat expression fell into another dark smile as he licked the blade of the dagger ominously.
"You either die by my hand or gamble your life with that bottle. Certainty in death or a chance? Live or die? Who knows! It's simply incredible!"
The pure insanity that clung to every word coming out of his mouth left Aaron speechless, blinking rapidly in true indecision, facing this dilemma.
One thought rose to the forefront, despite the fear of the answer.
"What happened to everyone else who drank?"
His tone was calm and collected, drawing a confused brow furrow from the silver-haired man across from him.
"Everyone else? Hahaha! You are funny! Nobody out of the hundreds of games I've played has ever chosen to drink! You would be the first, and likely, the last!"
Each sentence he uttered was layered with more and more chaos as if the mere thought of Aaron drinking from the unused bottle would be a monumental event in his life.
I could dodge the knife and bullet, but Penelope is still asleep… The bottle, on the other hand…
Suddenly, a plan so absurd that it bordered on utter lunacy broke through the top of Aaron's mindscape.
It was on a completely different level from anything else he had ever tried before, and the backlash he might receive could kill him in a heartbeat.
However, with every other option expired, the only choice he had left was either to fight for his life or to make a final gamble.
Holding the bottle in his hand, he breathed in heavily while uncorking it, maintaining constant eye contact with the golden-eyed man.
Stein's smile was ecstatic with pleasure and joy beaming from every inch of his face, awaiting the moment of consumption.
Then, with one last silent prayer to a being who he knew would always be watching, in a motion that could only be described as hasty, the black-haired boy tipped the bottle upward, allowing the liquid to pour into his throat.
"Gulp."
For a moment, silence engulfed the room, leaving Stein with a disappointed look across his face as he readied his weapons to finish the job after a defective drink failed.
Yet, as Aaron closed his eyes and reopened them slowly, reality itself exploded into millions of fragments.
Inside his head, time slowed, space collapsed, and bodily functions ground to a halt.
He was helpless in the face of a creature at the Apex of the food chain, even after its demise.
In the real world, his hands gripped the green table as his body seized and twitched, making horrible grunts and gurgles as blood dripped from his eyes and ears.
It was a gruesome sight, yet Stein beamed with glee, nearly bouncing up and down out of excitement.
He watched the entertainment carefully, as the black veins around Ezra's neck pulsated a sickly green and then vanished without a trace.
"Hm?"
Hair fell out in droves from the boy's head only to be replaced with luxurious blond locks that were complemented by streaks of turquoise that shone in the lamplight.
All at once, Ezra's whole body morphed into an entirely different figure that slowly rose higher and higher in stature.
Stein furrowed his brow in confusion as all the air in the room stilled, leaving the two figures standing there completely silent.
The seizures and twitches had disappeared, only replaced by a low chuckle echoing through the new boy's throat.
"Incomplete… The digestion was incomplete…"
A murmur, so quiet that Stein could barely hear, left the blond-haired boy's lips, who raised his hands to his face with his laughter growing louder and louder.
"Maybe you have the core… Do you have the core? The core. The core. The core. The core—"
His words echoed endlessly without respite as he walked closer and closer to the golden-eyed man, who backed up cautiously.
"Dammit! I didn't think you'd actually get corrupted by that damn beer!"
While his shouts reverberated with the sentiment of fear, the only expression gracing his face was amusement.
Aaron's stumbling accelerated, allowing him to dodge the daggers that were thrown at his skull.
Then, in a movement faster than what could be seen with the naked eye, the blond-haired boy vanished from sight, instead appearing behind Stein.
"G-G-Give me… the core."