Chapter Twenty-One - The Burning Star
A World without Misery (Interitus 1: Book 0)
Chapter
Twenty-One – The Burning Star
With
sparks and ashes drifting through the starlit air around them, Hatasuko and
Vaida stood back-to-back in the middle of a street with smoldering buildings on
both sides. Hatasuko glared ahead at Harvey while holding his mighty sword in
his right hand and his shield in his left. Harvey stared back with a confident gaze.
His sword dangled from his right hand, though his left hand was empty so that
he could unleash his Astrodeus power at a moment’s notice. On the other side of
the ash-stained street, Spencer stood beneath the pulsing stars and fireflies
with his hands wrapped around the shaft of his halberd. He kept his eyes locked
fiercely on Vaida, though her eyes were wide with anguish instead of energy.
She held a light sword in each hand, though she kept her shield hooked to her
back so that she could withstand an attack from behind.
The flickering glow of nearby flames illuminated the dirt
road. The orange reflections shimmered on the wet blood that stained Hatasuko’s
shirt. The slash in his stomach was not shallow, but it was also not deep
enough to bleed dangerously. Nevertheless, bruises covered both Hatasuko and
Vaida because they had sustained several blasts throughout this fight. Harvey
and Spencer, on the other hand, were almost entirely unscathed. In the place
where his crouching back pressed against hers, Hatasuko could feel her heart beat
rapidly. As soon as it started to slow back down, he knew that she was ready,
and so he pushed off her with a mighty spring. She had prepared for this, and so
they both suddenly charged at their enemies with this heightened speed.
As
Vaida ran toward Spencer with her swords ready and her hair flying in the wind,
she heard energy beams erupt behind her. She heard several explosions detonate
from enough places to make the ground quake beneath her feet, but she ran on
without even glancing over her shoulder. Without any warning, Spencer activated
his Astrodeus power and summoned a door-shaped barrier directly in her way; she
slammed against it and dropped both swords from the startling shock of impact.
Dazed
and confused, Vaida watched Spencer charge at her with the front-spike on his
halberd lunging for her head. With a quick, scared gasp, Vaida suddenly
crouched to the ground, barely dodged his deadly stab, and grabbed the handles
of her swords in the blink of an eye. Since he was still running, Spencer tried
to strike her with a powerful kick, but Vaida sprung aside at the last moment.
When she landed on her feet, she jumped a second time, spun halfway in midair,
and swiftly lunged both her swords at his back. Though he could not see her,
Spencer protected his back with a sudden barrier; her swords crashed uselessly
against it. The energy of this double attack empowered Spencer with the speed
to swiftly spin around, and then he quickly counterattacked with a mighty
halberd slash.
With a quiet yell that sounded like a scream, Vaida crashed
her swords into his halberd, but Spencer’s strength overpowered hers. His giant
axe slammed against her swords, sent off several sparks, and forced her weapons
to strike her chest with enough force to throw her backward. Her back crashed
against the ashy wall of a building, there were two shallow gashes in her
shirt, and she was clearly dazed by the force of his attack. Instead of
attacking again, Spencer ran past her and swerved so that she was trapped
between him and Harvey once again. Vaida pushed off the wall and readied
herself for battle, but then she heard several explosions once again.
Hatasuko
dodged Harvey’s streams by jumping from side-to-side as he closed the distance.
Right before Hatasuko would have been close enough to attack, Harvey jumped
back and fired the last shot of this cluster. His blinding energy beam flew
forth from his left hand, shot across the clearing, and struck Hatasuko’s
shield with enough force to stop him in his tracks; the fiery explosion forced
him to stumble backward.
As
soon as Harvey landed on his feet, he charged at Hatasuko and tried to attack
from inside a cloud of smoke. When their swords clashed, Hatasuko unleashed a
mighty roar which shocked Harvey into thinking he would activate his power. For
this reason, Harvey jumped back and away from the golden-eyed Astrodeus.
Hatasuko sprang after him and slashed again; Harvey threw himself backward just
to dodge the tip of his enemy’s blade. Hatasuko then attacked again with a forward
lunge, forcing Harvey to back up even faster. After another failed slash,
Harvey realized that his enemy would eventually catch him and kill him.
For
this reason, Harvey suddenly stopped running, pulled his left hand forward, and
aimed his palm at Hatasuko’s feet. In the moment that his glowing hand launched
the bright streams of high-speed energy, Hatasuko jumped high into the air. As Harvey’s
hand fired continuous beams, Hatasuko held his shield to intercept the blasts
in midair, but when two struck his shield and exploded, the impact overpowered
him; he flew down and hit the ground with a heavy thud. His shield had been
knocked aside, so Harvey fired the last two blasts in his cluster directly at
the golden-eyed giant.
The
first struck Hatasuko with a tremendous burst of light and flames; the impact
blew him into the air. The second struck him in midair, exploded, and forced
his body to crash through a meager wooden door. Hatasuko fell onto his hands
and knees as blood drizzled down from his torso. His shirt had been destroyed
by the explosions, and the shockwaves had torn his skin in many places. Smoke
lifted from his body.
On the other side of the street, Vaida continuously
slashed her swords back and forth at her enemy. Spencer stumbled backward with
every slash; she was so fast that he did not have the chance to go on the
offensive. Every second, one of her swords struck his halberd. After almost
eighty seconds of this, he threw himself backward to try to get some space, but
she accelerated and performed a double-slash while twisting her body. Her right
sword slashed high while her left sword swung low; Spencer blocked the high
slash with his halberd and the low swing with an energy barrier.
Immediately
after the double-block, Vaida jumped up, slammed her foot against his stomach,
and kicked off with enough speed to send him stumbling backward. The recoil of
this kick sent her flying backward as well, and she spun in the air so that she
landed safely on her feet with both swords upright.
But
now that he had the chance to go on the offensive, Spencer charged at her while
swinging his mighty halberd. Vaida threw herself backward and narrowly dodged his
massive weapon, but Spencer continued twisting so that he could speed up, spin
around, and attack again with more strength than before. When he spun around,
Vaida attempted to plunge her swords into his giant back. But in the moment
before the tips of her blades would have torn through him, he blocked with a
barrier. She was now stuck, trapped within striking range of his swinging
halberd without any time to dodge. She had only one way to save herself.
Vaida
spun around, jumped up, and let the halberd crash against the black shield on
her back. The shield saved her from the blade, but the crushing impact still
sent her flying. She flew across the ashy street and crash-landed in a pile of
smoldering debris; all her joints ached from the sudden jerk. She was dazed and
in pain, but she could hear him run closer through the flaming shambles of what
was once a village home.
Vaida
desperately stumbled to her feet and ran in the perpendicular direction of her
enemy. She ran back toward Hatasuko and Harvey so that Spencer would have to
change direction, but her footsteps were slow as she ran through the wreckage.
Just as she expected, Spencer created a human-sized barrier directly in her
way, but she was ready for this. Instead of slowing down or crashing into it,
Vaida jumped up, slammed her swords onto the barrier’s top edge, and
somersaulted over the top without slowing down. When she landed a second later,
she ran across the ashy street, but Spencer still rapidly closed in on her. She
wanted to look over her shoulder to see how close he was, but when she glanced
up, she could not see Hatasuko at all.
Harvey
glared at her with a sinister smile and his left hand facing forward. Vaida
closed her left eye, thus shutting off her vision, and used her hearing to
concentrate on the sound of footsteps behind her. Spencer was close. She had
only one way to survive Harvey’s energy streams, so Vaida spun around and did a
short hop into the air. Even with her eye slammed shut, she saw the blinding
flash of light that accompanied Harvey’s Astrodeus power. His explosive energy
blasts barreled through the street; three of them struck the shield on her back
and detonated simultaneously.
The three explosions combined and launched Vaida forward
at a dangerous speed. Though the sudden impact strained some joints and cracked
several others, this powerful push was so sudden that Spencer could not block her
high-speed approach. Vaida flew through the smoke and thrust both of her swords
in through his chest. Just the impact of her swords caused him to stumble
backward, and each blade unleashed a splash of shimmering blood. Her swords
jabbed through his back, but despite his blinding pain, Spencer pulled up his
knee and slammed it into her body. Vaida flew back and landed on her feet,
though she was dazed by the impact; she let go of her swords. Spencer suddenly
attacked again with a halberd lunge, so Vaida tossed herself backward and
narrowly dodged. He lunged again, she jumped again, and then her back struck
the wall of a building on the left side of the street.
Harvey
fired another cluster of explosive beams. Several of them fired into the
building where Hatasuko had been thrown, but Harvey saved a single shot at the end
of this cluster. To Vaida’s surprise, he fired the last energy stream at a
luminous target in the sky. It was an energy barrier—a barrier that Spencer had
created instead of attacking Vaida again. When the energy stream struck the
barrier with a blinding burst, all the energy pumped into Spencer’s body. For a
split-second, the energy transformed him into a bulging, steaming monster. He
swung his halberd with so much augmented force that he could not even control
the height of his slash. When his halberd blade barreled in through the brick
wall behind Vaida, it crumbled entirely; it crumbled into a massive rockslide.
As Spencer swung his glowing weapon out of the collapsing wall, Vaida shrieked
and threw herself away from the rockslide as quickly as she could; she landed
in the street with a sideways roll.
But
before Spencer got the chance to chase her, a storm of wreckage shot through
the street at a deafening speed. Vaida and Spencer stood so close to this that
they both fell upon the street; the whole block shook from the shockwaves of
the sonic boom. As the shrapnel rained down across homes and buildings in the
distance, a dark cloud of ash and smoke shrouded the street where Vaida had
been fighting. In the thickest part of this smoke cloud, Hatasuko emerged from
the collapsed building. His blood glistened in the glow of starlight stars and
fireflies.
Without any hesitation, Hatasuko lunged at Spencer and swung
his sword. Just as Hatasuko predicted, Spencer created an energy barrier in the
way, so Hatasuko activated his Astrodeus power. While glowing with the power of
immeasurable force, his sword slammed against the energy barrier. Although his
glowing sword did not crumble from the calamitous strike, Hatasuko failed to
break the barrier. The incredible energy surged into Spencer’s body and gave
him enough stamina to throw himself upright, jump backward, and rip Vaida’s
swords out of his body. The fading surge of energy protected him from the pain.
As
soon as the barrier fell, Hatasuko lunged at Spencer and slashed his sword, but
Spencer blocked it with the shaft of his halberd. Their weapons clashed with a
spark, but both Astrodei held their weapons here in a motionless stalemate. As
they stood in silence, a golden array appeared on the ground beneath Hatasuko’s
feet and activated; a burst of black fire engulfed his body and fueled him with
another round of quintessence.
“All
I have to do is activate, and then you die,” Hatasuko growled at his enemy.
“I’ve
got a barrier ready to go. Too bad you’ve wasted so much time,” Spencer
retorted.
A
loud scream suddenly sounded from behind Hatasuko. With a crippling surge of
adrenaline, he threw himself backward, ripped his sword off his enemy’s
halberd, and swerved around to see Vaida crouching behind her shield. She backed
up, desperately blocking the rapid slashes of Harvey’s sword, but she had no
way to fight back. Hatasuko turned around and tried to run toward her, but then
Spencer attacked from behind with a quick halberd slash. Hatasuko knew that
Vaida would be overwhelmed in a matter of seconds, but he also knew that he
would die if he did nothing to stop Spencer.
Therefore,
Hatasuko spun his body, swung his sword, and activated his Astrodeus power. His
glowing body unleashed an eruption of energy which surged through his right
arm. In a matter of milliseconds, his glowing sword struck Spencer’s halberd,
effortlessly destroyed it, and then shattered his left shoulder. At a speed
faster than sound, Hatasuko ripped his weapon diagonally across Spencer’s torso
in the blink of an eye; the shockwave widened the gash as it tore through his
body. The impact threw Spencer backward as blood spewed from this fatal
incision.
But
as soon as the flash of super strength faded away, Hatasuko swerved around and
saw something that would haunt him forever. With a quick roundhouse kick,
Harvey knocked Vaida’s black shield out of her hands, and then he thrust his
sword into her chest. His blue eyes were luminous with fury; her trepid voice
screamed into the starlight. Droplets of blood splashed from her wound,
Harvey’s sword pierced into the dirt beneath her, and her wide eyes stared ahead
with terror. Her little left hand dug through the hard dirt beneath her; her
fingertips clawed through the street. She closed her eyes, let out a quiet
gasp, and lowered her head so that her dark hair concealed her scars. As she
crouched on her knees in this catatonic state, Harvey pressed his shoe against
her face, grabbed onto the sword, and slowly pulled it out of her. Even as he
did this, he looked away with a conflicted expression. When his blade exited
her body, Vaida weakly dragged her hand so that she held her bloody wound.
“No, Hatasuko, I didn’t mean, I didn’t want,
um, I… no,” she whispered.
But
Hatasuko stood frozen in the street. Splattered in a mixture of Spencer’s blood
and his own, Hatasuko glared at the scene with ice in his veins. Even Harvey
looked distressed. He took a step back from Vaida as her blood dripped from his
sword into the ashes below. His blue eyes were open wide. He let out a quick
exhale, but then his face transformed to anger.
“You’re
knocking on death’s door, and he’s the one you think about? You’re
apologizing to him? Are you kidding me?” Harvey yelled.
“I
wasn’t… well there was… there was a time when I, when I thought that, when I
thought I wanted to die. I once, um, I once thought I wanted this. But I don’t.
No… I don’t want this. I only want, I only wanted to see… I want the islands. I
want to be with him. The starlight. The little waves. The steam. The fruit
trees. The sail-rana. Him. Hatasuko. I want… all I want is him. I don’t want…
I’m running out… I can’t breathe,” she whispered in a series of gasps.
Harvey
faced her and said, “You scarred my heart, Vaida. And it’s an ugly scar—it’s
the kind that stays forever. It will be with me long after you’re gone. But
that doesn’t mean that this is painless. I need this so I can have closure, so
I can finally get you out of my head, but this still hurts like hell. It’s like
ripping a knife out of my own skin.”
“You
get the fuck away from her, and you do it now. I’m not going to tell you
twice,” Hatasuko yelled with tears in his furious golden eyes.
Hatasuko
had sheathed both his shield and his sword. He now held just a rock in each
hand, but since they were the same color as the ashy street, they camouflaged
with his surroundings. Harvey locked eyes with his enemy, but he swung his
sword so that he could finish off Vaida. Hatasuko interrupted by activating his
power while throwing his rock. With an earsplitting sonic boom, the rock shot
across the clearing, struck Harvey’s sword, and blew it to a thousand metal
shards in the blink of an eye. Though the sword had been destroyed, the impact
of the rock still knocked Harvey away and sent him spinning. Knowing that
Hatasuko would not hesitate to deal the killing blow, Harvey now ran away from his
enraged enemy. He zigzagged as he ran so that Hatasuko could not easily take
aim.
“Vaida!
Don’t close your eyes! Stay with me,” Hatasuko yelled, though his voice did not
hide his absolute terror.
Hatasuko
ran across the ashy street and threw himself to the ground as soon as he
reached her. His whole torso was bare and stained red by the damage he had
taken earlier in the fight, so the movement of the wind felt cold against his
skin. Vaida knelt in the street, frozen in the place where Harvey’s sword had pierced
her. Her whole body quaked from the pain, but her face looked catatonic. She stared
straight ahead, but her eyes did not see anything. Hatasuko lifted her into his
arms and stood upright, but he buried his face into her dark hair.
“Vaida, you can’t die! I can’t lose you! You’re the only
thing I have left. You’re the only thing that gives me hope. You’re the only
reason I haven’t succumbed to the screaming tempest! Please, Vaida, stay with
me, please. Use that perfect brain of yours. Find some way to save
yourself! There has to be something. Please,” he said, fighting back tears.
“There
is… one way, but I, I don’t want to live with, I don’t want to face it. I never
wanted to kill. I didn’t… I wasn’t meant for this,” Vaida whispered weakly.
Except
for the part of her which was drenched with blood, Vaida’s body felt cold in
his arms. She shivered from both the temperature and her trepidation. With her
scarred right hand, Vaida limply reached into her pocket and pulled out a pen.
Hatasuko’s memory flashed back to the fight in the city of Procella, where he
had used a pen to draw the array of black fire for his very first time. He then
glanced over his bloody shoulder and stared at Spencer in the street behind
him. The Astrodeus had been mortally wounded by Hatasuko’s slash, and now he bled
out all alone in the middle of the road.
A
bright flash of light then lit up the sky from several blocks away. Hatasuko
heard the bursts of Harvey’s power devastating another part of Lumipyla.
Several different screams yelled out into the starlight.
Vaida
explained with her faint, strained voice, “An Astrodeus… doesn’t physically
have a heart…. So if I were to get quintessence, I mean, if I could just
evolve, then I… I wouldn’t die from this. But that is, we both know, that is
the only way I can survive. But I don’t… I can’t kill him, not for my own
survival. It’s not right. I shouldn’t even be alive. I wasn’t… supposed to
survive to begin with.”
“Vaida,
please don’t talk like that. You mean more to me than anyone else in this
world. Your survival was not an accident; it happened because it was meant
to happen. Because you and I are meant to be. It’s not your destiny to die
here.”
“But
how… how am I supposed to kill…? Wouldn’t that make me just like-”
“Not
at all. Harvey, Spencer, the Interfecti, and all the rest of them—they are evil
because they kill the innocent. That is the difference between us! Maybe we are
killers too, but our victims are not innocent. Harvey’s destroying the
village around us as we speak; we need to do everything to stop him. Even if it
means killing his accomplice, even if it means killing him. But I can’t stop
him without you,” Hatasuko explained.
As
he held Vaida in his strong arms, Hatasuko felt her warm blood dripping down
his forearms. She closed her eyes and opened her little mouth as she struggled to
inhale. She lifted her scarred right hand and gently ran her fingertips along
his sweaty face. His golden eyes were wide, and his hands trembled as he held
her. His mouth turned dry as he stared at the girl in his embrace.
“Please,
Vaida, I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you! I couldn’t handle it. The
tempest would consume me. I can’t even imagine-”
“Hatasuko…
I don’t want, I don’t want to lose you either. I don’t want you to hurt because
of me. I’ve caused… enough pain for one lifetime,” she whispered.
“Does
that mean you’ll do it?” Hatasuko asked.
“I
will. I want… I want to stay with you,” Vaida answered.
With
the bloody girl wrapped in his arms, Hatasuko ran to the place where Spencer bled
unconsciously in the street. Bloody soot soaked the ground around his body. Part
of his chest lifted with each breath, but his body had quickly lost warmth.
Hatasuko crouched down beside him and set Vaida on her hands and knees. Though
her face clenched from the pain, she grasped the pen in her little hand and drew
the golden symbol on Spencer’s skin.
Even
in its incomplete state, Vaida could feel a circulation of energy shimmering
across the surface of the symbol. It looked like there was a glowing reaction
between the symbol and something in the air itself. Vaida could feel her life
fading as she nearly finished drawing the array. At the edge of eternal
emptiness, Vaida scribbled the very last curve to finish the symbol. As soon as
it connected, as soon as the circulation was complete, the array of black fire
activated with a bright golden glow. Black flames emerged from the symbol and
swept across Spencer’s body in a matter of seconds.
As
Vaida crouched on her hands and knees beside the dying Astrodeus, she realized
that the black fire did not actually incinerate his body. It was not warm; it
looked like an illusion. Nevertheless, her body then became luminous with a
white glow that matched the shine of the stars in the sky. She could feel the
black fire transform Spencer’s life force into an invisible energy that then
poured into her being.
“It’s so powerful. It’s, it’s too powerful! I
can’t contain it,” Vaida exclaimed.
“Don’t
fight against it, Vaida. Just let it take you.”
Every
building began to tremble. The smoldering shambles started to shimmer. Without
any warning, a powerful surge of luminous energy suddenly poured into Vaida’s body
from every direction; the air tore itself apart and fueled her with its energy.
The air pressure plummeted so quickly that Hatasuko’s ears both popped at the
same time; the shockwaves forced him to fall to the street. All warmth
disappeared from the ground and the air at the same time. A shimmering circle
of white ice appeared beneath her feet and spread out in all directions. The
ice shimmered from the incandescent energy that surged into her body.
In
the heart of this convergence of light and energy, Vaida felt her open wounds
seal shut. She could feel the wondrous sensation of her injuries healing on the
inside as the icy world became the ingredients for her new body. Every muscle
on her arms and legs began to bulge with force; her back and legs elongated
with exhilarating speed. Every part of her body grew larger. With every passing
second, a beautiful layer of glistening ice spread farther across the ground. On
hands and knees, Hatasuko felt the cold touch of the ice, but he smiled knowing
that she would survive.
When the giant convergence of glowing energy finally came
to an end, Vaida emerged from the icy light in her new Astrodeus form. She was
still shorter than Hatasuko and the other two Astrodei, but she was taller now
than any human in Agrideī. Blood still stained her clothes, and her torn shirt
could not conceal her abdominal muscles. She looked more fearsome now than ever
before. Her scars were in the same places as before and of the same relative
size, though they looked darker than usual due to irritation. As Hatasuko
stared at her with an astounded sense of wonder, she lowered her right hand and
offered him her help. He grinned, accepted her hand, and climbed back on his
feet.
“This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever felt! It’s
such a change… such a giant, giant change. Is it really mine?” Vaida asked.
Hatasuko glanced down and met her excited eyes with a
smile. Though the transformation had healed her open wounds, her longstanding
injuries proved incurable. Her scars were still present and her right eye stayed
blind, but for the first time ever, Vaida did not feel weaker because of it.
The glow that settled around her large body began to fade as her energy
approached equilibrium.
However, a blinding flash of light then lit the sky and
broke her concentration. Vaida and Hatasuko both looked away so that their eyes
would not adjust to the brightness. Even as they looked away from the flash,
Hatasuko saw a fiery flicker in the light; this proved that Harvey had used his
energy weapon on the people of Lumipyla. Though he did not see it, he knew that
Harvey was blasting at the villagers who tried to run away. He was killing them
with the array of black fire.
“While we wait here, he kills more and more. If he’s using
the array, then he’ll just keep getting stronger. I don’t know if I can defeat
him,” Hatasuko admitted.
“Then don’t,” Vaida said as she dropped her rocks and her
whip on the dirt street.
“Wait, what are you saying? You’re not going to spare
him, are you?”
“Of course not. But you’ve fought hard, and you’ve done
enough. It’s time for me to carry my own weight. I’ll take care of this, don’t
worry,” Vaida said with a sweet smile.
Hatasuko nodded. With nothing in her hands except the Interfectus
shield, Vaida ran down the dirt street on her new legs. Every footstep felt
more powerful than ever; every running step threw her through the air faster
than she remembered. As she pumped her strengthened arms back and forth, she
realized that her Astrodeus body could reach a very fast speed in a very short
time. She ran through each block in seconds. Hatasuko tried to run after her
for backup, but he had fallen behind; his body was already injured and
exhausted.
As Vaida ran, she glared ahead at the glowing light and
said, “But that’s only half the reason. I have to stop Harvey because it’s my
fault that he wound up here. I have to stop Harvey because I created him. At
the very least, it’s the ending he deserves.”
“Will you really be able to do it? I know it won’t be
easy. As much as I hate to admit it, the history you share isn’t going to sit
there quietly,” Hatasuko yelled from behind.
“He’s killing innocent people, and I am the only one who
can stop it. I, um, I have a moral obligation. It doesn’t mean that I can
overlook my memories. My younger self will be watching from the shadows. That
sweet boy who held me in his arms and cried out to the world—he will also be
watching. But this isn’t about me, and this isn’t about him. It’s about every
life that hangs in the balance,” Vaida whispered, and the swift wind carried
her words to Hatasuko.
When Vaida reached the other end of the block where
Harvey prepared his next strike, he fell completely motionless. Bloody corpses scattered
the ground around him, all hacked to pieces and burned by black fire. His last
two victims ran away since they knew he was distracted. Harvey turned his back
on them and glared at the Astrodeus form of Vaida with a gaze of astonishment.
“You weren’t supposed to survive. How many times do you
have to die before I’m finally free from you? How many times do I have to go
through this pain?!” Harvey yelled, throwing his left palm forward.
Harvey narrowed his eyes, activated his power, and fired
a high-speed burst of energy streams. The light was so blinding that even
Harvey could not see well enough to aim, though two energy beams still shot
toward Vaida. As the others struck the street and buildings with fiery bursts
of glaring light, Vaida clenched her shield and sustained the blows with the
strength of her body. Two explosions diverged around her shield with a burst of
colorful sparks, but Vaida pushed through the flames until they faded away.
When his barrage finally ended, a faint cloud of steam lifted from Harvey’s
left arm. He kept his left palm aimed at Vaida, but he did not use his power
again. Instead, he glared at the back of his hand.
“It didn’t have to end like this. It doesn’t have to end
like this. Not anymore. Vaida, you and I are the same now. We can take this
canyon for ourselves!” Harvey exclaimed.
To her surprise, Harvey had a look of expectant hope in
his dark blue eyes. As flames flickered on in the ashy street around him, he
stared at her with an expression that looked caught in between heartbreak and
longing. As the fireflies danced overhead, Vaida realized that this was the
same face he had when he held her in that hospital room, all those many years
ago. Even when they had walked together outside the orphanage, he always had
this same expression. When they were in Bones City together, when she saw him
for the first time since the day she left, and he confessed everything to her,
he wore the same expression. He was frozen in place at the boundary between
heartbreak and longing. This was what had set him on the course for disaster.
This was what made him so desperate that he used the lives of the innocent as a
way to face his pain. She knew that it would only get worse from here.
“I’m not alive because of some unreal bond you think we
share. I’m alive because Hatasuko wouldn’t let me die. It’s as simple as that.
I love him too much to ever let him go,” Vaida retorted, knowing that this
would draw his fire.
Vaida was right. Harvey glared straight ahead at her and
then shifted his gaze to the back of his left hand. She could see the rage
burning in his blue eyes. He was furious. He could see Hatasuko slowly running
through the blocks behind her, pushing himself so that he could fight by her
side.
Harvey faced her and said, “You and I will go down
together. First I’ll take you from this world, and then I’ll take myself. This cruel
world has driven us apart! Reality forced us into this star-crossed disarray,
but we can still finally find each other somewhere in the emptiness. This is
what I wanted all along, Vaida! For you and me to be free from the distractions
all around us. For you and me to be one.”
Harvey then activated his power. In the moment that he
unleashed his blinding stream of explosive energy, Vaida threw her shield aside
and used her most powerful countermeasure; she triggered her own Astrodeus
power for the very first time.
Hatasuko watched from a short distance as Vaida’s body
completely transformed into an incandescent shape of flashing flames. This blaze
grew larger in all directions with every passing second; Harvey’s energy beams
harmlessly struck her and exploded, further fueling the fiery fury of the
growing star. Vaida steered this monstrous star of fiery light above the
rooftops so that she floated away from any civilians; every inch of the canyon now
bathed in the blinding light. The fireflies were eclipsed by the glow of
Vaida’s new form. Every canyon wall basked in the luminous flare and reflected
the fiery light. Every building cast a long shadow. Even from two blocks away,
Hatasuko could feel the pressing heat of the burning star. He had to look away
and shield his eyes with his arm so that the brightness would not destroy his
eyesight. Even as he watched the flickering shadow of a wagon at the edge of
the street, he could tell that Vaida unleashed a pulsing energy in this
powerful state.
“No! It won’t work if you survive!” Harvey yelled as he aimed his hand up to the sky.
Harvey activated his power and shot a series of energy beams
at Vaida, but they all harmlessly exploded on impact. He could not make a dent
in the spherical inferno. Every energy stream that struck her burst into flames
and then joined her. Once Harvey realized that he could not fight back, he
dropped to the ground with steam lifting from his arm. With the bodies of his
victims laid out around him, he glared up at the burning star and saw her
unleash several scarlet solar flares. The fiery energy danced across the star
in the form of spirals. Every eye in Lumipyla watched this massive display of energy.
“Goodbye, Harvey,” whispered Vaida from the heart of the burning
star.
Hatasuko watched in awed silence as the solar sphere of
fire came crashing down on the far end of the street. In the form of this
living inferno, Vaida engulfed Harvey in a fiery heartbeat, but the star did
not explode when it hit the ground. Instead, every flashing flame converged in
the heart of the burning star. It looked like she was imploding; the starry
mass of fiery energy surged together and destroyed Harvey in a matter of
milliseconds. Every shadow in the city danced from the convergence of this
scarlet light. Every adjacent window shattered from the shockwave. Hatasuko’s
eyes were overwhelmed by the brightness of the burning star, but he glared on,
searching desperately for any sign of his best friend.
Before
long, he saw the outline of an Astrodeus in the center of the fiery energy. Vaida
further materialized herself with each passing second. The energy faded quickly
from the air until she completely reassembled. When the convergence stopped,
Vaida returned to her Astrodeus form. Her eyes were wide, her face looked
dazed, and her hands trembled as steam lifted from her body. Despite her
warmth, Hatasuko walked up and wrapped his big arms around her. Though she shivered,
she was not catatonic, and so she returned his passionate embrace. It felt just
like it had before, back when they were both human, but the world around them felt
smaller than it once was.
“I’m so glad you’re alive; I’ve never been that scared in
my life! I really thought I was going to lose you,” Hatasuko confessed.
“I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I’ve told you before that
I want to see the world you work to create—a world without misery. Sometimes,
it’s all I’ve got to keep me going. It’s because I never want to hurt this
badly ever again,” Vaida whispered.
Though he could not see her face, Hatasuko knew that
Vaida was in incredible pain. She had just killed her childhood friend—the only
friend she had known until she met him. Though Hatasuko could not see the
confliction in her bright blue eye, he knew that she fought to reassure herself
that she had no other choice. This was the only way to save Harvey from
himself.
Hatasuko whispered to her in their embrace, “I know you
said I can’t do anything to cure your pain, but I don’t think I can accept
that. I don’t want to accept that because I don’t want to give up. If I could help
you as much as you help me, then that would be enough for me. Even a world as
dark as this might finally start to feel fair.”
“Please just keep holding onto me, Hatasuko. Hold on and
don’t ever let me go. That’s all I need from you. That’s… all I need from you,”
she stammered.
“I’ll hold onto you forever. We’re going to make it to
the very end. We’re going to make it to those islands. Do you know how I know?”
After wiping her eyes on his bruised chest, Vaida stepped
back and pulled her hair off her face. Her eyes shimmered from her sadness, her
scars were touched by moisture, and her mouth tried to force a shaky smile. She
lightly shook her head.
“Because I feel this so powerfully that I know it must be
true, and I’m not giving reality the choice to disagree with me,” he answered.
After a very brief pause, a smile emerged on Vaida’s
lips. She stepped forward and pressed into his arms once again.
Click here to see the disclaimers regarding AI-generated artwork.
Would you like to simulate the fight from this chapter?
Download Battle Interitus and use the access code 9802.
It may take a couple tries, but it is possible to win this fight!
Comments
Post a Comment