My sword blurred until the world itself seemed to slow, each heartbeat stretching into eternity.
Yet I felt everything, every tremor, every scream, every pulse of life extinguished in an instant.
Heads, arms, legs, hearts, all bursting like ripe fruit beneath the storm of my blade. It was glorious.
I was a terrible person.
I moved through the armor and the wreckage, careful to mark the living with my poison.
I watched as it spread through their veins, driving them into madness with each passing second.
And with every scream, I grew hungrier, more delirious, more alive.
This power he gifted me, this divine curse, it was changing me. Twisting me. Warping the marrow of who I was.
It made me terrible.
Oh, how terrible it was to slaughter those who came to kill me. Oh, how terrible it was to find joy in it.
I was truly a terrible person.
And yet, as nearly half their ranks fell in the blink of an eye, laughter welled up from somewhere deep and unholy within me.
It poured out, ringing over the carnage like a hymn to madness.
Madikai watched, transfixed, his delight breaking through in fevered laughter of his own as my blade cleaved through the barriers of man and meaning alike.
People often speak of human life as sacred, as something of worth. I hated that idea.
I stood still, not to rest, but to let them believe I could be beaten. To give them false hope, that sweet, cruel illusion.
A soldier stepped forward, his crimson armor slick with the blood of his comrades, his black blade trembling in his grip.
He tore off his helmet and screamed, "You'll die here!"
I placed my hand on my own helmet, crushing it tighter against my head.
My voice came muffled and cold, sharp enough to cut through the din.
"Never have I seen a more pitiful display of power. Never have I seen someone crave greatness so desperately, yet fall so miserably short. Never have I seen death come so naturally, so effortlessly meaningless."
He lunged, and his head flew free from his shoulders before his feet even left the ground.
Blood sprayed across me, warm and thick.
I laughed, and danced.
More came, driven by rage or fear or duty, I no longer knew.
They rushed me, all of them drawn in by the scent of death and the illusion of hope.
I didn't go to them, they came to me.
They came to me like moths to a dying flame.
"Was I calling you? Was I calling you to your death?"
My laughter broke through the thunder, manic and triumphant.
Then silence.
When the slaughter ended, a pool of blood spread beneath my boots. I stood alone, or at least, the world believed I was.
Madikai's voice returned, low and amused. "Aubrey, have you had your fill? It's time you rest again."
I sighed and slid my sword into its scabbard. "Such annoying, yet caring words. Why should I rest?"
I looked to the horizon. A storm brewed, dark, swelling with grief. It felt as though the sky itself mourned the fallen.
A selfish storm. A human storm.
And through the thunder came cries, soft, distant, unmistakably feminine.
The lament of someone unseen.
Then a hand touched my shoulder. Madikai vanished instantly, his presence always banished in the face of something greater.
But this presence was not grand. It was serene.
Before me stood a woman with rose-red eyes and a long silver rapier glowing faintly with resolve.
A crimson cloak draped her form, white bandages winding around her wrists and arms.
Her boots were black, her trousers pale, her hair a dark cascade that framed her sorrow like a crown of mourning.
Tears traced paths down her cheeks.
"Oh, how much suffering have you endured, little girl?" she asked, voice trembling. "How much pain did it take to bring about such ruin?"
My throat felt raw. "Who are you?"
She shook her head, weeping harder, her grip tightening on the sword as though it anchored her.
"I am Rosaline," she whispered. "I am… nobody. So you don't have to worry. You don't have to lament."
She spread her arms, her smile fragile yet radiant through a stream of tears. "Come. Meet the one who will free you from this terrible world."
I tilted my head. "Are you from Dangu?"
She shook her head softly, her movements slow and deliberate.
"Though I stand here now, I am merely a passerby, a wanderer searching for the ones I have lost."
"Then why do you fight?" I asked. "Why would you risk your life for a meaningless battle?"
"Because!" she cried, her voice shattering into the wind.
"You are crying! Can't you see it? Oh, how terrible, that you can't even see your own sorrow."
Before I could move, her fist struck, crushing my helmet with impossible speed.
My vision lagged behind the motion, and for a heartbeat, all I could perceive was the lingering scent she left in her wake.
It was a scent that clung like rain before a storm.
The air touched my skin, cool and electric. Though the rain had not yet begun to fall, my cheeks were already wet.
I trembled as her hand brushed against my face, her touch unbearably gentle.
"Do not cry, little child of born blood," she whispered. "Though I suppose such words would wound you more than comfort you."
I stammered, my voice caught between fear and confusion. "Who are you?"
Her shoulders shuddered once more.
The blade of her rapier flashed like lightning and pierced through my throat with merciless precision.
"I am Rosaline, Anstalionah," she said, her voice steady, resonant, and absolute.
"I am the child who was never born, the heir of nothing, the queen of rage, the beloved of envy, and the cradle of both life and death."
This was impossible. They only had two children, both barely four years old.
So who was this woman, this reflection of them both, carrying their likeness twisted by something ancient and terrible?
And her power, oh, her power, was beyond reason. Greater than Madikai's, greater even than the woman who had slain him.
She withdrew her blade with surgical grace, then swung upward.
The world fractured in an arc of white agony as her steel carved through my left eye.
"This can't be," I gasped, clutching my face. "You're older… stronger… that could only mean one thing."
My voice faltered, disbelief knotting my breath. This woman, her very aura, sickened me.
The air thickened around her, heavy with an authority that erased resistance. I could not even summon my Regalia in her presence.
She raised her blade to her lips and slowly licked the blood clean, her gaze distant and mournful.
"I am from the future," she said softly, "a future that no longer exists. And in a final, desperate act to save her…"
Her eyes drifted downward to the blood-soaked grass. "He sent me, the nothingness born of that union."
Her limbs trembled as she sighed, her strength flickering between eternity and exhaustion.
"Go on then, whisper your warnings, scream your truths. It will not matter. This is the end of all things."
I tried to move through time, to tear through the fabric of the moment and reach Nicholas.
But before the spell could form, she caught me mid-step and slammed me to the ground.
Tears spilled from her eyes and fell onto my face, warm and endless. "I'm sorry."
She whispered, her voice breaking. "I'm so sorry, for everything, for all of it."
Her emotions struck like lightning, too vivid, too immense.
Normally, one could sense only fragments of feeling: anger, hate, love, bloodlust.
But what radiated from her was pure empathy, unbearable and raw.
It filled me until I thought my heart would collapse beneath its weight.
And I cried.
Through the rain that defied time and space, through the thunder that tore holes in reality itself, I wept.
The storm raged, immense and mournful, and I understood then, it was hers. Her sorrow made manifest.
She rose to her full height and screamed, and the world trembled. Infinity itself rippled; every timeline, every possibility, every illogical outcome convulsed beneath her grief.
When her cry faded, the storm fell silent.
Her rapier found my right eye with delicate finality. The blade slid through as tears streamed from her face.
"Oh, how the days have fallen," she whispered through her sobs.
"And oh, how the cries of this world have reached beyond their bounds. Lament, rage, despair if you must… for I am here."