Johanna was a woman of action. Crusaders were always in a hurry—riding in, riding out, leaving nothing but demon corpses and loot they were too busy to pick up.
"Crusaders?" Tony Stark mused. Bruce Wayne committed the name to his mental archives.
"Hey, 'professional,' tell us about the Crusaders," Spider-Man said, tugging on Constantine's tie again. He looked at Steve with a bit of concern. He liked Tony, but he respected Steve on a fundamental level.
"How should I know? I don't even know what a Barbarian is yet! You lot just popped out of nowhere!" Constantine used a shard of metal to slice through his own tie, finally gaining his freedom. He collapsed onto the snow, grumbling.
"The Crusaders are another branch of Nephalem power," Madawc's voice drifted in as he appeared momentarily before vanishing again. "Don't get ahead of yourselves. You're Barbarians now. You think you can double-major?"
"Raekor… I didn't mean to keep it from you."
Joret looked incredibly awkward, his massive, scarred hands wringing together. In front of Raekor, he couldn't maintain his "Veda" persona.
"I know. I've known since the moment Veda appeared," Raekor said calmly, lying back on the stone bed in her small hut. The bear-skin rug was so old its original color had faded to gray. The furniture was just logs and stumps—it looked exactly like the room they had shared on their wedding night.
"Is that so? I forgot… you can see into the secrets of the past. Tell me then… did I actually defeat destiny?"
Joret wasn't a fool. He understood the weight of Raekor's words. But he needed to hear the answer from her.
"In the moment after you 'died,' before Veda appeared… yes. For a heartbeat, you were beyond destiny's reach."
Raekor's expression was unreadable. During the years following his supposed death, she had searched the threads of fate for him countless times, and found nothing.
"Then it wasn't for nothing. Even if your soul is still trapped in the Soulstone." Joret's voice was laced with disappointment. Half of Raekor was free, but full liberation was still far off.
But Joret had a more pressing concern: how would the ancestors deal with him? He had sabotaged the collective interest for his own selfish goals. On Harrogath, that was the ultimate sin.
"Tell me, Joret. When you were inside the Dark Soulstone… what did you see?"
Raekor ignored the previous topic, her face becoming stern.
"You know the answer. Destiny never lets go," Joret said, his voice regaining its gravity. He stared at her face—a face he had dreamt of for a thousand years but could never touch. It was the only thing that had kept his soul from drifting away into the void.
"I've fulfilled my contract with Azmodan. Your soul is free. I won't do anything else to hurt our people," Joret promised. The aura of corruption that had clung to him began to dissipate.
Azmodan and Andariel couldn't hope to control a warrior like Joret forever—not while he was standing on the Holy Mountain. In the presence of two Immortal Kings, their corruption was limited to specific triggers—like Rorschach being alone.
"Tch. Joret, if you had hesitated for even a second before crushing that man's skull, I might believe you. But what right do you have to ask for my trust now?"
Raekor scrutinized him. She hadn't changed since the day she died. She existed because of her obsession, and that obsession made her stubborn. But Joret had changed. He had lived a long, weary life as Veda. He wasn't the same "Brave" warrior she remembered.
"Right now, Kanai is more pleasant to look at than you, Joret!"
Raekor sighed and lay back on the bed, her heavy armor clanging against the stone. She was ready to end Joret's soul herself if she had to.
"Was my return part of your vision? Or am I still just dancing in the palm of fate?" Joret asked quietly. A faint, ominous mist began to rise from his skin—the last dregs of the Prime Evil's power.
"Destiny hasn't caught up to me in this world yet. But I told you—the moment Veda appeared, you were back on the radar."
"Can destiny be defeated, Raekor?! Tell me! Can it?!" Joret's voice grew louder, more desperate.
"What kind of person feels the need to 'defeat' destiny?" Raekor asked with a hauntingly beautiful smile. "Destiny… it's a humble word used by the strong, and a convenient excuse used by the cowardly. Have you ever heard Bul-Kathos ask about his fate? Does Worusk look for answers in things he cannot touch? My knowledge of destiny was nothing more than my way of running away."
Raekor laughed at herself. Facing the burden of the Barbarian race's survival, she had needed a pillar to lean on. She chose destiny. Worusk's path had brought them to the brink of extinction, and as the strongest of her era, she had nothing but intangible prophecies to cling to.
"So now! Are you free?!" Joret's face was obscured by a swirling, dark-brown mist.
What happened next would determine if Raekor would be forced to personally end this nauseating plot of the Prime Evils.
"Rorschach… Rorschach. Look at this bloody mess of a face. You really are a hero."
Rorschach's soul floated in the air, talking to his own corpse. It was strange. Bodies usually stopped twitching after a while. His was being remarkably persistent.
"You really are a piece of work, aren't you? Critiquing your own looks at a time like this."
Worusk stepped out of the shadows, his heavy iron boots clanking on the stone. Rorschach noticed him immediately. Worusk was here for one reason: to prevent Harrogath from pulling Rorschach's soul into the mountain's core too early. If that happened, even Death herself couldn't put him back together.
"I figured you lot would just leave me here until you needed me for something," Rorschach said flatly. "By the way, Worusk… can you pull my journal out of my brains? I really don't want to have to rewrite the whole thing."
Rorschach was remarkably calm for a man whose head was currently decorate the floor.
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