.

.

…

……

.

.

Sand,

rushing its coarse vapors along the vehement winds across those fingers, opened wide,, stretching, of longing.

The hand of a boy upon dust and debris, reaching afar.

reaching.

Onward the child toiled, dragging his bleeding dark stained form across the sands. The wind howled on.

His body ravaged and torn, whilst his firm determination to crawl forth.

Further. Faster, he prayed for his swaying conscious at the rim in struggle, only to jerk to a delaying halt, half a mile from his destination.

From Her,

lying right in front of him.

Motionless.

It is on him.

It pained the boy so, knowing the consequences they had suffered—She had suffered, was all due to himself.

And his greatest regret before his world submerged into the lightless void,

was unable to say it loud and clear

“... I am sorry…Yuri…...”

.

.

…

……

.

.

Before his world lit up once more, his arm was already raised, though still materializing out of dust, reaching out to seek what could have been but a distant dream, unable to gain form in wakening, and but let the wind dive between his speckled manifesting fingers.

All around him, the ashes of the diminished sailed in one mind as the winds taketh them forth through the lands dry, of sand and rot, in dark, smogged in thick pestilence, turmoiled under Demon spur.

Light that has relinquished its dominion, abandoned Earth to the hands of Dark.

And Archdemon Plague saw that it was good.

Traversing with the turbulent flow, the Demon's ash-like essence swirling a river of sickness in the air, reforming its demonic form one spec after another.

Along with its host, the chosen correspondent, the snatcher of Memory, Vernui, once guise as Vitas, blasted by exalted rays and survived the deed, now but a shadow, vague in facade, and dim in existence, slowly regaining his flesh.

“ Thank me, you shall.” Archdemon Plague guffawed, its carrion-like skull looming over Vernui’s scattered and reforming ashes but a shade of an obscure upper torso of the helpless young man.

“ Your mind and flesh persist as long as I be. We are linked by a bond carved deep into the chains of Fate. And more so, your purpose exceeds your demise.”

Still but an amalgamation of dust and demonic debris, Vernui croaked in defeat.

“ What purpose is there to a failed strife…?” Vernui sighed and parts of his ash form dissolved with the wind.

“ What more can I achieve that I have failed Yuri again…and again…now that she is a prisoner of the Skylord—”

“ Feel the wind, boy.” The Archdemon of pestilence urged in an enticing tone that lowered Vernui’s doubt as he scoured the expanding atmosphere.

“ Sense the currents of Destiny. Feel you not the flow of Light, dashing across the horizons??”

Without his eyes, without any physical way of sense, Vernui sought the wind that brushed through the emptiness of his scattered self, the cool vents through his hollow silhouette, like a winding finger touching the edge of existence, Vernui felt a penetrating force cut through the tip of his airy long reaching touch, as a bullet, a capsule,

And within that vessel,

Vernui surely felt it.

— Yuri—!!!!!

“ She is free—” Vernui uttered, hope seizing his ash body more to form a fuller facade.

“ Yuri…She has escaped the grasp of Caesar Skyman…!!!!” Relieved, Vernui let the wind sweep his existence forth, yet the clawed hand of the Archdemon caught the young man in its wretched palm, halting Vernui’s rest.

“ She may be out of Light’s imprisonment.” Archdemon Plague crooned.

“ But she now delves in my dominion…All of Dark and Wrath shall seek that Memory of hers. She shall never be free from the curse her blessing ensues. A blessing that all covets…which you shall seek…for All of us.”

The winged Archdemon turned to his slowly recomposing correspondent snidely.

Vernui mused in silence, brows locked deep as his expecting gaze followed the thin shimmering line of white drawing through the pale sky, trajectoring downward, closer and closer to the horizon’s edge.

“ Well…what stupefies thy flight?” Archdemon Plague crooned in an inpatient urge, slithering its long neck behind Vernui, its sharp-beaked head protruding to the young man’s side..

“ The Last piece to salvation is yonder in reach. The way of the Herunis Carna you shall excess, and through you, We, the forsaken beings shall thrive and reclaim what was ours…!”

Solem was the young emissary of dark and ash, grimly his gaze did stagnate at the brighter yonder where the escape pod so vanished. A cloud of grey smog lifted as herald to the crashing landing the vehicle so had performed.

With silence, the young emissary of dark answered.

The carrion Archdemon was not too amused by the way his emissary so responded.

“ Your hesitance bades ill,” Plague grunted, its swirling presence looming wider and towering to assert his dominance.

“ Have you forgotten your creed? Cast away the anguish of the past, have you? This failing Earthly state is not where we belong. Revert to the age of Man, befuddled juvenile! Where you and the one you Love truly belongs!”

“ Is that so?” Vernui questioned, his sharp gaze darting askew, staring back at the hollow red glows of the Archdemon’s glare.

“ Is this past, this Age of Humanity you speak of the one true answer to all your schemes!?”

“ We Were All, Man.” Plague introduced with its thin long eerie arm raised, ushering Vernui’s gaze to follow his reach across the lands smeared in dark, drenched in pus. And harvesting amongst the field of macabre, Demons of all forms and morphosis thrive.

“ But now minds without mortal shells, agony and grief husked by Nano Ash. We bare the primordial curses, unquenched Vengeance of the demised. Each Demon you see, each Beast of dark that follows my wrath, is a Nanomic Replica of a blemished Soul.”

“ Caged in their own madness.” Vernuii averted his gaze away from the grotesque monstrosities wallowing in dark puddles, screaming insanely to the skies without means but only to hate.

“ Deprived of the will to feel, to understand. What Past do they savor? What Past do they so gravely seek so piteously from the Herunis Carna?”

“ It is the Past, like yours, that bore their derangement, boy.” Archdemon Plague revealed like an uncouth guide, leading Vernuii’s half-materialized body in a gust of wind under its harrowing wings across the ravaged lands.

“ For their Last Memories, of Doom, of Dread, of Demise, of Defilement, of Despair, morphed and sustained to this very moment, becoming their First Memory in this foreign Earth they once called home. The Nano shell maintained their presence, in pain, in suffering. And the only way to stop the torture— is to Go Back. Through the Herunis Carna, which only you could reach for them.”

“ If they are what you say they were,” Vernuii retained his doubts on this carrion-winged beast of grandeur upon him.

“ Then What Are You? What Art Thou that snares me so in thy devious trade?? What are you that pulls the strings upon me like a puppeteer to amuse?! What are You that falls not into insanity, but writhed in unsavory schemes to use me to covet Yuri and her Memories??!!”

The wind howled between their silence, like laughter of the aerial Archdemon, before Plague began with a deep cackle.

“ Truth be so that I have yet to fully introduce myself to thee, along with our plight.” Plague rose high and behelding, wings spread high above its head as its visage shrank in blinks of an eye, transforming and altering its appearance as humanly appeasable, into a man-shaped being, shrouded in dark and ash, slightly taller than Vernuii and still as menacing as its true Archdemon form.

“ I am The One they call Plague, Second of the Primeval Archdemons bore by the Nanomic Mother of The Scourge. I exist not of one, But of Many Depraved Souls forged into one mind that thee had summoned.

With One Sorrow we bear to return.”

“ And what Sorrow is that??” Vernuii questioned doubtfully.

“ The Sorrow of Disparity.”

Archdemon Plague replied rather calmly, his dark matters swirling across his black humanoid body like small tentacles wriggling enticingly to invite Vernuii to its unholy secrets.

“ I am the amalgamation of the replicant Souls of those that had perished under inescapable Fate; of those that fell victim under an unwelcomed Doom. I am All the past agonies that grieve an untimely inevitable demise. And that makes thee, Vernuii, one of I. You, are part of me.

Your Grief, your Plagued Past, give rise to All my excellence.”

And lo, did the Archdemon writh its sickly long crooked fingers, drawing an ebony smog that cast visions only for Vernui’s witness, scenes of the dark horrendous past Vernui could barely bear which finally dawned upon his sight, upon our unwilling emissary of Demonry, this young Vernuii the tainted Starbreaker, whose tragedies now uncloaked and his past like a mighty stream flashing through his widened eyes.

He saw his First Memory of this World,

The Last Memory he brought before his corporal form perished—

—of the little boy crawling on the sand, grasping nothing before him but wind—

— in a futile path to seek—to reach—

—-YURI—!!!!!!

“ …Yuri…” Vernuii could but utter a forlorn gasp, stepping two heavy steps back, only to realize the Archdemon’s words were but true. His hate, his regret, and anger of the anguished past, were what linked to this Archdemon deep into his own unpeaceful soul. The corruption was willing, and Vernuii felt it too, in the darkest depth of his true self, he too wished to be avenged, to right the wrongs that took his life and Yuri away.

To return to the past, where times were simple, and joyously pure.

Now but none.

He saw the boy that once was, that helpless boy in him.

Crawling in the sand, in hopes to escape his untimely end, his infinite sorrow,

in vain

to retrieve his longing.

.

.

…

………

.

.

Exhausting the energies of the rebounding force of the Gravitas incantation, soaring across to the remote edges of the longitudinal continent, the escape pod hurtled and swayed, diminishing in velocity and pulled by gravity, sinking down and kissing the cement flooring with a vehement blast, dust rising to the skies, pebbles and debris bursting all over.

Leaving one deep cracked trail along the greyish runway, the pod mauled through the earth to a slow halt, digging further down into the corrupted soil.

Checking quickly of their surroundings, Lima peered out the scrapped cockpit window, bleak solemness reflecting upon her view of sight.

The world of grey and white, rains of silky snow pouring askew, the chilling breeze spreading the powders across obsidian obelisk surface engraved into the soil.

The unnaturally smooth cement plain spreading before her eyes was not foreign to Lima, for she immediately recognized where, despite her dizzied blurred eyesight, or what kind of location they had encountered.

It’s an airport, Lima realized, her past calling as her eyes scoured the premise intensely sideways.

Pale dusty midst, like thick veils reaching to the heavens, wafting across the bleak arena smoothed by ebony steel plates spanning miles long and wide, hiding under the pale ash covering more so.

It was a military airport, so it used to be.

Ages have passed since Lima believed she had seen something out of the past such as this deserted establishment, something that belonged to her long-abandoned memories, of the age of Man, that is now but a forlorn ruin flanked with morbid hollow obelisks.

But a facility nonetheless, that might store essential medical equipment and resources that can still be of use.

Certainly, anything that could change their current state for the better, Lima prayed as she unlocked the cockpit. Frigid air cut in the junctures, biting Lima’s skin the moment a fissure was made, and as if the world altogether sensed their coming, the murky yonder stirred.

Lima sensed it too, the beyond knew, they were here.

Seconds was all, as the unseen horizons rose of dark, waves of black rippling with rabid viciousness, groans, hollow screams brewing, assembling stronger and greater into a fatal chorus, until at its climax, a huge form leapt out among the rim of dark, full speed to the grey heavens.

Lima could but watch in horror and apprehension as the black entity descended, crashing on to the plains afar, snow bursting up to the clouds towering by its force. It stood, six spiked clawed appendages supporting its sleek blade-filled torso, its tri-horned head turned towards Lima and the pod, its red monoeye glaring like a star of doom even through a million miles away. Its long skeletal tail writhing amongst the slowly raging snowstorm.

A creature of reckoning, so it was, a Beast of grave proportions, twas a Demon Hound of vile motives, standing tall as the darkness, like a sea kissing the sand bay welled under its six metallic limbs, all were Demons rushing with rabid spur.

It was one of them, one of the horrendous Archdemons that have crossed through the fractured North Line, bringing with it seas of doom and minions of dread. And now It has found its way here, for one dread purpose alone.

To snatch the Memories of Yuri—of The Herunis Carna.

Lima felt powerless just by the sight. And sensing Lima’s fear, hopping up onto the brave girl’s shoulder, was the loyal wolf cub Elza, barking courageously at the intimidating beast sea yonder, pumping morale towards the plutonium skies with all its audacious strength.

The grand Demon hound sensed the wolf cub’s challenge from million miles afar, and it howled also, one deafening sharp screach like none of canine origin, none of earthly force, but of dread, of a combination of woes and shouts merging into one whistle of doom of deprevation, ripping Lima and all’s eardrums as Lima quickly shut the cockpit window back down, covering her ears with both palms hard, yet still, the tremendous shout like grieving penetrated and shudders all of the skypod.

Elza wolf cub heard the shriek and stopped its barking, just temporarily, for it listened, unperterbed and unharmed at all by the shout to Lima’s surprise, as the puppy bravely went on barking back at the far menace soon after, stronger and louder than before. Unwavering, the young cub was, granting Lima a strength to rise.

Then so, the earth shook as the Demon Hound, accepting the challenge, let out one deep immense growl, like a cruel order, sending the sea of Demons under its feet all out to the taking.

After them they are, the dark sea approaching. Lima tensed as the numerous screams and roars rumbled and tremmored the earth, heralding their soon arrival from the yonder, as she readied a quick leave. They won’t stop, for all those Demons, with their eyes and their want pinning on one thought alone.

Yuri.

Lima hushed the puppy hastily and turned around to call upon her friend, her dearest family behind her—

“ Yuri!! We can’t stay here, we must go…!”

Opening the cockpit lid again fully for departure, expecting to leave immediately, Lima halted at the last second, to hear those reluctant responses,

of sobbing.

Curled up in the cramped inner section of the pod, burying her face deep in shadow, tears that would not cease, flowing down those snowy pale cheeks.

Straining to keep her wails to herself, only for her weeping to hurt even more.

But nothing could quelch the sorrow,

of the passing of Captain Bradson.

Sensei Castiel Bradson.

With the Memories, the calling of the past burgeoning more and more vividly, of the times of her stay on Captain Bradson’s Betelgeuse ship, and also, of his true identity,

the kind old caring janitor Castiel Bradson Sensei, that looked after them back in the elden days.

Like a ranching knife did his abrupt passing struck Yuri through her light heart.

The more she began to remember, the more the reminiscence grew,

the more pain it brings.

“ I…I must…”

Stammered Yuri weakly after a long period of teary silence, reluctant to step out one step further to the outer unknown, yet her Starbreaker armor, flashing as if trapped in between existence and none, glitching over Yuri’s battered rough frame, like a leaf fighting against a tempest, trying to stand.

“ I…I must go back…I can still save him…I Can Still Save Grandpapa…I CAN STILL SAVE CASTIEL SENSEI!!!!”

“ YURI!!!!”

It was that unrelenting spirit, that ever-powering spur unknowing of defeat and surrender, that Lima so adored and loved of Yuri. But now, it is this same determination, this stubborn resolve and recklessness from Yuri that brought Lima to such unspeakable pain, such heartbreak that she dared not say outright but pray deep within for Yuri to cease struggle.

Yet, before Lima could even stop the anguished Starbreaker girl, Yuri herself fell mid-stance, crumbling back onto her knees amongst the crammed pod space, sobbing.

There, Bradson Captain seemed to be, standing before Yuri’s eyes, in a field of clear and bliss, the jovial benign old friend, surrounded by the children that he so loved and dearly loved him back.

Bradson’s warmth beaming like a sun forever unwaning.

Yet the bone-chilling winds of outer pierced in through the crevices of the lid and the stationed pod, sweeping all that was left of the memories of old into damp vapor, pulling Yuri back to the harsh present.

Her bluish-pale Starbreaker armor slowly lost color and essence as each second passed.

“ I shouldn’t have left…I should have stayed…I should have fought back…!!!”

Yuri’s voice, thin and echoey, like ripping velvet, brimming with immense sadness, dying into the silence.

She could never forgive herself.

She could not give in to her defeat, and her leaving her dearest captain behind.

She had to do something, and she had the power to. She had felt it, back in the Stream of the Herunis Carna sealed afar in those memories that she had pushed the dastardly Caesar Skyman out through her own will, she knew she can do it.

The powers to dive to the past, to nullify any attack, to nullify that one strike upon Captain Bradson— She Could Do It.

But her will was not enough.

Her body and strength can catch up no more, and feeling her senses fleeting away from her consciousness which Yuri tried hard to clench, she knew deep down she had failed.

A feeling of defeat that her mind has yet to admit.

“ You can’t beat him…” Lima’s voice, quivering also, persuaded with much plea straining in her exertions, trying to speak reason of which she firmly believe.

“ That enemy is unstoppable…He is a Bradinn…on Caesar’s side... But we made it out, Yuri! Because Sensei Bradson knew…He knew this is The only way for All of us…to could go on! Here! Right Now! Is What Matters!!!! We Can’t Let Sensei’s Sacrifice Go in Vain, Yuri!! WE CAN’T!!!!!”

It is, a Promise she had to keep.

A vow she had made.

To keep Yuri safe,

To keep Yuri Alive,

For her to cure the world

Through the Herunis Carna.

“ Please…For…for us…for you… ! Sensei Castiel had done his all…! Please…Please, Yuri…we have to go…”

Lima begged, tears flooding out of the rim of her strong unrelenting eyes that still were unable to hold back the grave sorrow, of the passing of a beloved mentor. A friend,

family.

This is his only wish, his last plan, for the greater tomorrow, and to turn back now will only tarnish Castiel sensei’s sacrifice.

But Sensei…!

Lima herself struggled to stand up. Her legs were numb and her muscles torn after the fight against the Skyworld droids before. Lima too, was crumbling due to fatigue.

But still she pushed herself up.

Time itself is running out, and the hoard of Demons, have crept their way closer than ever.

Wolf cub Elza couldn’t help but whine in urgence.

Feeling the utter need to urge Yuri to follow, Lima resorted to physical encouraging force.

“ Yuri…We must go…!” Lima begged again, crouching close to her friend, encouraging her desperately and tugging gently as her heart beat frantically, sensing the shouts and cries of the insane Demons nearing more and more.

The shadows yonder dashed with sinister fervor.

“ Come on…Yuri!! Please! Don’t let it all be in vain—...”

Lima’s voice died as a cold piercing sensation ran up her spine.

The sobbing diminished, the sniffing vanished, and slowly did Lima herself realize, that neither was Yuri moving.

She was still, terrifyingly still.

The Starbreaker armor had dimmed in deactivation, without flare, without power.

All colors that should have fainted, as the dull grey of the heavens above.

Lima placed her trembling hand upon Yuri’s shoulder, trying to wake Yuri with her cold numbing hand.

“ Yuri…?! Yuri, come on…YURI?!?!”

Her fingers felt nothing but chilling, irresponsive flesh.

The shouts of the Demons growing, their rustling clanking prances audible now.

The sudden piercing barks of the puppy perched on Lima’s shoulder pulled Lima out of plunging desperation as the wolf cub ushered with its snout at the floor of the pod on which Lima knelt upon.

As her eyes traced downward, Lima felt a neglected sensation of chilling, tepid wetness welling shallowly over her knees.

Blood.

Bright, sparkling, yellowish, tarnished, tingling blood, flooding into a small ominous pond beneath where they sat.

All flowing, trickling out from Yuri. From between her thighs.

Lima’s heart skipped a beat.

.

.

…

………

.

.

“ We are one, boy. One in All.” Archdemon Plague churned as he moved like a swooping dark midst around the mortified young man now kneeling on one knee, his reluctant envoy.

“ Each and every one of your thoughts, your actions, your malice, and hate, fills me with Power. Power of the defeated soul. That is how we Demons operate, and how we seek our belonging. The past calls upon you, it calls upon us All!!”

The vicious being in its humanoid form menaced tall and wide upon Vernui’s cowed stance.

“ Face your failures, face your anguish! You want Yuri. You want her, you want to be in bliss with her, but the world forsakes your promises, your craving! So tear this World Apart!!! Unleash your Hate and Humanity and return to the Promised Memory—!!!!”

But an agreement was not what Archdemon Plague received, but a Starbreaker sword pointed upon its carrion throat.

Plague was mildly surprised.

“ You gave me this body, for you to fulfill thy yearning of great chaos.”

Vernui spoke, weak in whisper but strong in tone, rising slowly up from his kneeling pose. The Memories, the fears, and the sadness of old still flashing across his eyes so clear, yet the tip of his sword still and determined, resolve echoing in his calm but angered voice.

“ You gave me this Starbreaker armor, pillaged from its former owner that has fallen, for me to disguise and trick Yuri…You restored my Memories, My Last Longing, to use me to seek your ultimate Want!! But there is one thing you can never give, and never take— That Is The Will to Keep Yuri Safe, and Happy!! Whatever it Takes!! That Is The Only Thing that kept me alive, till NOW!!!! You know what I want…And I too know what you want…

…You want only the Herunis Carna, and be rid of Yuri the moment you get your prize.”

The Archdemon’s eyes flashed with a cunning glow at Vernuii’s bold words.

.

.

…

………

.

.

Cursing herself for not noticing sooner, Lima ripped the cockpit lid full open before forcing all her strength upon her thin arms as she pulled Yuri out, heaving with all her might and anguish as she retreated in maximum urgence, flinging Yuri onto her back as she ran, speeding across the dust cloaked runway with all her skinny legs could take her. And off towards the cement abandoned facilities Lima pranced, Elza, the wolf cub following close as they traversed through the ash-filled wind battering them as if forcing them back into the inoperative sky pod.

The roars, the screams, closer and closer.

In the next second, a round vehicle-sized Demon, its head a foul rodent of doom, with blades as paws, dashed out from the foggy midst ahead, shrieking madly as its fanged incisors pinned down like wrathful knives aimed at Lima’s skull. Like a bullet, the puppy shot out from behind Lima’s shoulder, sinking its fangs first at the eyes of the rogue beast, dark blood splattering everywhere as the huge rat Demon writhed and struggled with its bladed appendages slashing the air aimlessly in pain.

Gaining the opening to strike, and lunging to the side, Lima leaped forth, grasping her golden necklace in a blink of an eye and opening its insides vehemently, activating the shimmering marble within without sentiment as her Light saber burst out like a raging stream of light to her calling, the handle immediately fitting into her tight grip and the blade searing and piercing through another Demon rodent’s throat.

Adjusting her footing, Lima raced on, as the Demon swarm relinquished their hiding and cornered them all at once, ambushing the girl and puppy from all sides, thrashing their insane claws, craving with utmost hunger and greed, only to be met with demise under the blade of Sunlight and the fangs of the courageous wold cub. One after another, charging in from all sides, the golden blade danced with curvature and stregnth, felling many a foe through its path. Dark ash and blood smearing the snow field pitch black.

Even with Yuri upon her shoulders, or even all the weight of her past and sorrows, Lima could still go on and on, and slash after the next, rushing forth to the nearest facility of abandonment.

She must go on.

She had to go on,

for Yuri…For them both.

And for everything they hold dear.

The oath she made, like the stunning immovable sun blade she wielded that struck without falter, without hesitance.

She had owed Yuri too much already—

.

.

.

“ What is her name? The new girl?”

“ Heard the teachers calling her Lima.”

“ Where did she come from?”

“ How did she make it here?”

“ Is she…contaminated…?”

Their endless whispers, murmurs of trepidation, like a smog of apprehension wafting around her relentlessly as Lima quietly sat, alone, burying her face within her curled arms, trying to stay deaf to the world of noise.

She had had enough of human contact, for those things are but ransom of tragedy, of reality.

No more, Lima swore to herself.

No more.

No more shall she come close to anyone on this Earth, for the more she cared, the more pain the loss brings.

The Children of this shelter that took her in were also unsure of how to bridge relations with her, and the awkward tension was always palpable, along with the fear from others that lingered underneath the silence.

I could accept that, Lima persuaded herself so.

Yet,

There was this one curious child, who sat next to her in the dingy dilapidated classroom, who won’t stop trying to make contact. In bright speech and in gentle whispers, Lima all ignored at the beginning, trying to exhaust the child’s curiosity with her indifference, only to incite more attention from this… peculiar person.

This unrelenting child, that won’t take ‘No’ for an answer.

“ Where do you come from, Lima?”

“......”

“ What is your favorite color, Lima?”

“......”

“ …Wanna play catch ball after class, Lima?”

“...No.”

“......”

“......”

“......”

“......just leave me alone.”

“ No.”

The child so replied, firmly.

“ I won’t leave you alone, because I don’t want to see you cry again.”

“ You make no sense.” Lima grunted, turning her face the other way, still slumped upon her creaky wooden desk.

“ That’s what everyone used to tell me.” The child replied with a chuckle.

“ Then you must be stupid not to listen to them.”

“ I know. But I also know that you are stupid too.”

“ What?!” Lima turned furiously to face this sassy rude girl, only to see her beaming back with a smile that proliferated warmth like the sun. Like Light, in pitch darkness.

“ See?” The child grinned, leaning closer to Lima as she lowered her voice to a whisper.

“ I made you turn around. I win.”

And the child laughed, and it was like music.

“ I am Yuri.”

The child so spake,

“ And I will never leave you alone, Ever.”

.

.

.

More and more, out of pale, of midst, lesser Demons swell in like an endless flood, wrathful and insane, biting and savage, ripping the air with their claws and fangs in senile pursuit of the one and only—

— Yuri,

currently lost consciousness and hung upon Brave Lima’s shoulder.

Rat-headed Demons sprawling vacuously, equine Demons like apparitions soaring without lead, and Taurus Demons smashing their huge clubs acting all savage and uncivilized, rushing and charging, only to meet their unexpected demise under Lima’s sunlight beam saber and the crushing bites of the courageous wolf cub at the young girl’s aid.

But still, the raging flock of monsters was too many for one to fell alone.

Quickly in haste, Lima switched her golden necklace counterclockwise in a vehement grasp as the amulet shimmered, and before any feeble demons dare neared, a blast of gold and light dazed all over the two girls, a wave of gold swirling and humming like alive around our brave Lima as the powers surged, diving to the young girl’s calves and adhering at once from spec from particle, into solid armor, resonating with power and zeal.

With a sounding leap, Lima pranced, the golden leggings summoned out of her powerful necklace burst into life as jet steam pushed her and Yuri, across the crowded opening, dashing upon the runway through a graceful curve, towards the large military facility shrouded behind fog.

Don’t any of you dare…!!! Lima cursed to all the pursuing foes under her exertional breath.

Don’t any of you dare touch Yuri!!!!!

Slashing her path with vigor and resolve as she flew, charging among mad arrays, racing to the gates, and now seizing the large handles— only to realize they were sealed shut.

The demons have yet to catch up as Lima frantically searched for a way to break through the firm vaults before finally coming up with a plan by piercing the tip of her lightsaber through one indented fracture upon the metal gate, melting the metal bit by bit, but not fast enough.

As a lapin Demon, a dashing ball of dark spiky fur, acid saliva drooping madly, a round void with its mouth lined with circular fangs spiraling endlessly down its esophagus, darted out from behind Lima and shot toward her face as she desperately tried to melt the barring linkages. The small but venomous Demon, attempting to end the epic sooner than anyone could imagine in drastic speed that Lima could barely react—

— Turn Left —

As if by instinct, as if the voice yanked her body to a side, Lima found herself dodging the lapin Demon’s woeful strike with surprising agility and accuracy to the left, watching the devilish spiked fur ball soar right before her eyes as the miniature lesser Demon crash through the dented portion of melting steel upon the sealed gates, leaving a series of mauled cracked orifices melting away by the lapin Demon’s acid mouth fluids and the heat of Lima’s saber, gradually yielding an opening for Lima to break in.

Still shocked by the uncanny opportune happenings that had brought this blessed outcome, Lima quickly sliced the melting walls with her beam sword, and pushed Yuri in before diving after into the other side, carrying Elza the wolf cub with her before any larger Demon could reach them.

The hole that the acid had assisted their entry, was unfortunately also being the aid to the Demon kind as the lapin Demon’s saliva went on biting off more and more of the iron vaults, leaving a gaping hole that spread wider and wider, welcoming all vicious kind to give chase.

Hearing the Demons charging through the fallen steel behind her, Lima hurried down the dark, down the pitch-black inner sanctum of the military base, turning around corners and dodging behind twisted turns, venturing deeper into this obscure spacious labyrinth in the dark as the Demonic spur raged on behind, always there, always nearing.

Lima, pointing her dawning lightsaber yonder as a trailblazer, down the rectangular corridors she sped along the endless hallways, until suddenly—

— Behind You, Lima—

Swerving at the last second, piercing her lightsaber forth did Lima puncture the ball of snare and spikes of the cunning small lapin Demon, the one that had not perished at the beginning of the entry and returned with more wrath and raged fervor, leaping out for a treacherous ambush only to be finally served a fitting end.

Panting with astonishment and awe, Lima did realize it was the unknown voice once more, this time the call of a boy afar that had saved her with warnings opportune and insightful. But Lima couldn’t care much more.

Yuri.

Yuri is fading.

Lima could sense the weight of her friend turning lighter, as if Yuri was vanishing into snow dust bit by bit, her light diminishing, dwindling.

At a crossroads Lima now stood, to go further, or naught.

Faltering before the leading paths, front, rear, left, and right, all four directions, filled with the muffled echoes of Demon shouts up front, closing in on all sides.

There is no way out now. They are outnumbered, and soon to be surrounded by starving doom.

The blaze of Lima’s sword flickered, like her courage faltering deep down.

Yuri’s memories, must not fall to Dark.

Lo, deafening the growing cries of the Demons, dashing forth in black swarms of malice, charging with snatching glee, yet, affront it all, the bright heart-pounding bark echoed with power, of the wolf cub seated on Lima’s shoulder, leaping up with a gaze so firm, prancing with its tiny paws decisively, halting the lesser demons in frustration and distraught. Elza wolf cub rushed forth towards the legions, without hesitance.

“ Wa…WAIT!!!” Lima uttered, knowing any path ahead was filled with threats no matter which way they chose, but her terrified qualms were immediately answered by the voice of—

— Follow the dog—

This time, the voice had grown clearer, and Lima was pretty sure it was the same girl earlier that seemed to have whispered close to her ear as before, the invisible speaker, the formless guides who Lima could but trust with every cell in her stressed body in such plight.

That was when Lima was absolutely sure, she was not alone.

Unseen aid was with her all this time, but from where, from whom, leaves to be answered.

Mustering her faith and courage, Lima lunged forth, her golden armored leggings bursting, pushing her to Elza wolf cub’s side, as the three, canine and girl, and the unconscious Starbreaker on girl’s back, zigzagged along the darkness, navigating through the maze with sophistication and resolution, which had Lima well relieved that she brought the puppy with her.

— Go lower, The dog is heading down the sewage —

“ What ?!?!” Lima blurted as she did as she was told with quick agility, breaking through a vertical lid before entering a niche tunnel at the next second.

— Seal the opening. You don’t want Demons to trace you —

With her Lightsaber, Lima sealed the metal lid around the rim, melting it to the wall, barricadimg the part from where she came.

But she lost Elza the wolf cub, seeing only a dark crossroads before her, leading endlessly to yonder ends.

— The dog headed left —

— It’s not a dog, it’s a wolf —

— Whatever —

The two voices, girl and boy disputed with each other.

Yet when Lima looked around at her dark narrow surroundings, no one was in sight.

Still no sign of any persons, nor existence, let alone two bickering whispers, and the reverberating roaming and growls of the Demons seeking above her head.

“ Umm…okay… Thanks?” being pretty sure she was having auditory hallucinations at this point, Lima headed onward, carrying Yuri down the sewage pass as she was told nonetheless.

To the bottom, Lima found herself descending to a vast metallic valley from a steep long spiral ladder, rooted at the start of the underground chamber.

Elza the wolf cub was there seated on the floor, panting and sniffing the cold monocolored environment, trying to help understand their surroundings more.

Scouring the iron long tables layered with stagnant objects and specific instruments across the alcove, frozen in centuries untouched, Lima recognized the layout before her being one of an infirmary that belonged way back in a time long had she laid behind.

Laying Yuri onto one of the tables, Lima started searching frantically, with her Lightsaber glowing through the cabinets and utensils, looking for the things crucial of need—to stop Yuri’s detrimental bleeding.

“ The wound…the bleeding…needs to stop…!” Lima panted, grabbing all sorts of bandages, tape stirrups, and suture needles with her from the wrecked cabinets, bringing them all to the operating deck, as she examined the source of Yuri’s blood nervously.

The lightsaber handle she bit between her jaws, horizontally placed, being a flashlight as per needed at this critical moment.

Yet the more Lima examined, the more confused she was.

The predicament was unlike any other, with an ominously glowing rune flashing slowly like an alarming light, beating underneath Yuri’s pale belly. An intricate Rune like none other, none Lima had ever laid eyes upon, its luminance emanating from within, as if something, something of an unknown source was awakening within Yuri’s frail body. The blood, however, kept flowing, more and more nonstop,

from between Yuri’s thighs.

Lima’s world swirled and her eyes dazed as the pressure and the guilt of her helplessness weighed down upon her like the whole facility crushing down from above. Ripping the roll of bandage halfway, her arms trembling to a sickening halt.

She was lost.

But surely…Lima persuaded her ruffled mind, if there is bleeding, there should also be a wound, hurt of the inside that she hasn’t yet detected—

— It’s not a wound, Lima —

Lima made a double take, spinning to her right as the voice was suddenly resounding right next to her, closer than ever before with a faint glow of eminence, as if someone was actually there.

And loo, it wasn’t someone, but something, lightning up the once-obscure infirmary hall with a warming halo, revealing to her the owner of the voice, of the unknown boy.

A spark, a glow, a swirling eminence of light blue and pale white, floating right above her shoulder, like a beacon of patient guidance.

Lima, though spooked by the sudden appearance of the apparition-like form, felt no animosity in the hovering entity’s wake.

She stared at the white-bluish ball of light in utter silence, and the glowing sphere stared back.

Elza the wolf cub growled in vigilance, but the ball of light remained docile and persevering.

— It’s not a wound, Lima

It’s… a Process —

The swirling force of bright spake once more in assurance,

despite Lima’s sheer shock and confusion.

.

.

…

………

.

.

“ You want only the Herunis Carna, and be rid of Yuri the moment you get your prize.”

Vernuii’s words, firmly spoken, sent the Archdemon to an abrupt silence.

“ I won’t allow that…Not on my watch. You may have raised me out of ash, from perishing dust, but my will, my Memories…My Mind and longing! They are not for you to incorporate into thy glorified schemes!”

Nevermore, Vernui pledged with every tarnished cell of his reanimated body, now that he has gained more and more in Strength and will over his body and soul over the past few days of being a mere Muppet.

Nevermore shall I be a tool to hurt those dear.

Silently, like a wily apparition, Plague hovered, circling the young man, as if deep in thought, as Vernui’s blade followed the humanoid Demon patiently.

Then the winged beast man started to chuckle, and then laughed, and its howl was not like before or after, but like the world was captured in myriads of mighty insane swirls of wind and tempests, raging the skies and earth in its devilish wheezing.

“ So you actually understand the Song of the Demons. The calculations of the damned. Impressive.” Plague sighed with satisfaction and fulfillment, of what Vernui could not yet comprehend.

“ You hear our cries and shouts like it is your own tongue. Good…Then there is nothing I need hide from you anymore, and no need to waste my spit on words to entice thee. ”

The Archdemon straightened his poise, standing before this young man like an equal, without rage, without exasperation, but sincere relaxation in that one sigh.

“ I have seen not only my Past,” Vernuii secured his blade still at the Demon being before him.

“ During my fall and evaporation from Skyworld, I saw all the despondent Souls, those forsaken thoughts that you kept under your pestilent wings.”

The blade in Vernui’s clenched hands pointed firmly still at the scheming before him.

“ They are like me…craving for something that could no longer be. Hating onto an end that they never do deserve. All the souls you store are those that you use to fulfill your bidding. Controlling them, Us! As your mannequins! Through me, you come closest to the Herunis Carna. But you too are controlled. ”

Plague cocked his head to a side, listening with great interest.

“ How so?” asked the Archdemon.

“ It is your Nanomic origins that you cannot escape. The Nano hive mind that gave rise to your Demon flesh also chained you to an inescapable path—That is to Become Human. You assimilate each and every soul you gathered, their Memories, their wants, analyzing them, learning from them, so you can transcend your core state — an incomplete simulation, and fulfill your sole purpose—to gain Humanity.” answered Vernui.

The Archdemon mused the words he had received in silence.

“ You know more than I imagined.”

“ It is as you said, We are One in All. Your intentions are sealed deep, but still planted within me.”

The Demon was silent for a momentary pause, its dark hollow ebony eyes staring beyond Vernuii, to the things only Demons could comprehend,

and fear.

This time, it was Vernuii’s turn to be baffled by the Archdemon’s unnerving silence.

Plague was not a Demon of few words, and when even the winged Demon was silent, something must have been terribly wrong for the grand scheme of Demon's reign.

The carrion Archdemon finally nodded after the temporary silence, choosing its words carefully.

“ There is a fundamental notion in the grand picture you have not yet grasped.” Archdemon Plague secretly uttered his punctuations snidely.

“ One that only Archdemons could discern.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

One that I will show thee,

without sentiment.”

.

.

…

………

.

.

Encountering this surreal illuminating essence, face to face with an astral amorphous being, of warmth, of alien bloom, Lima could have inquired about this glowing vaporic orb of its identity, or drew out her lightsaber once more to strike this extraterrestrial luminance, yet Lima chose to trust, to believe their whispers and guidance of the encounters before meant something other than of hurt, and calming down her vigilance while still raising her lightsaber, Lima asked for the graver need.

For Yuri.

“ If it’s not a wound…Then what is it…?” Lima asked shakingly.

“ What is this…Process, this…!?! What is happening to her…?! What must I do?!?!”

— It is a Process that is fated to occur

anchored deep within each and every branch that sprouts from the origin —

And again, as the first ball of light spooked Lima seconds prior, Lima spun around in shock to see a second floating sphere on her left, blazing with darkish blue and stunning violet, echoing with the stoic tone of a girl slightly younger than herself.

Elza wolf cub growled also at the purplish sphere warily, but the violet sphere did not seem to care, as if it understood of the puppy’s protective manners of loyalty.

— It is a Crucial Process of which the Future depends upon—

The purplish new sphere whispered, her voice calm and slightly condescending, as both orbs’ glow bloomed with gentle flickers joining to Lima’s presence.

Despite the grave speech of foreboding, Lima was still in the dark.

“ …I don’t understand any such Process you speak, and I fear there is no time for explanations either…” Lima hastily confessed to the two formless entities of Light.

“ … I have to save her……I need to bring her back…!! I need help!”

Both swirling lights hesitated, as if facing each other, contemplating whether to share or conceal what they know from Lima. After a long impending silence, the violet one, the one with the voice of the girl replied placidly at last.

— She had exhausted all her Light. Her Powers spent, and no sufficient amount to even heal her wounds —

Lima blinked, her eyebrows wrinkled to a deepening frown as her eyes widened in trepidation.

— She needs Light Source,

or to be exact,

Light Blood —

Lima gave a slight jolt of revelation, blinking hard at the mention of the substance.

— Instant administration of Light Blood required —

Light Blood.

Long have she heard the name uttered to her ears, Light Blood, Light Blood...never would Lima expect to hear out of any other than the dastardly Caesar Skymans’s lips. A sustenance Lima was sure known only to Caesar, Bradson, and herself. An innovation from the cursed past.

The essence flowing within all, Starbreakers, men, women, and the children too, especially the children,

except for herself.

Long had Light Blood been lingering around her, running through the veins of those she once knew, of those she once called friend.

One such sustenance that only she does not possess, within her blood that is.

Tightening her grip upon the strap of her pouch which hung askew across her chest, Lima’s gaze panned slowly, gingerly down, unease creeping.

They need Light Blood also, Lima realized soon enough. They need it badly.

Just like how Caesar Skyman needed it,

to bring back Yuri—

That pouch, Lima had kept close to her at all times, from the start of her voyages, across many quests and encounters till now, she carefully hid behind her as she stepped back from the two glowing ominous orbs of light.

“ A Second Chance,” Lima remembered The old janitor say, solemnly holding a firm metallic vial, containing nothing but sparkling glowing liquidus light.

“ One last resort to return, and evade from fate.”

But Lima never anticipated any return, for none had meant goodwill for those that actually came back.

None returned had peace of the past.

None even had peace in the present.

No more. Lima rejected firmly, securing her pouch behind her with a brushing flourish.

No more shall any of you take Yuri’s Memories for granted. No more shall Yuri suffer for your gains…! Not Caesar Skyman, and definitely not you two!!

Lima planned her steps cautiously backwards, edging close to Yuri’s unconscious side, as the one of bluish luminance darted towards a corner, as if sensing its target.

Elza barked in foreboding, to which Lima agreed was opportune.

— There it is! —

Startled joy and relief were palpable in the voice of the boy of the blue glow as it circled around a series of crumbled iron modules affixed to the floor.

— They stored it within, inside these containers.

I’ll illucidate —

With a flash, a sparkle, a dancing of bolts and flare, the blue ball of light emitted such photonic force Lima could but discern yet incomprehend, and after what was a blitzing shatter, the modules were struck open like a can shaved off its lid.

Revealing the greenish bloom inside, kept in a cylindrical barred container, roped by wires and sophisticating devices of many colors and functions, that stored the essence.

Many other vials were also within, shattered, save one taht was unharmed, resting in the center with its luminance instore.

Just that one vial, horded in that vehicle sized container module.

Shocked was Lima to see how that iron vault was severed so easily, and also by how one such rare substance actually existed outside of Caesar Skyman’s realm.

Impossible…Lima blinked hard, Caesar Skyman extracted it, modified it, designed the Light Blood recipe. But how…? How did one such vial appear in this vast nowhere, this rundown military fortress of no significant meaning?

Can it be…Caesar was not the only person to realize the formula…

— Good, —

Shaking off her theorizing thoughts, Lima pulled herself back to her priorities as the purplish glow, the girl’s calm voice had just spoke, floating towards the module container and the Light Blood vial present.

— To secure the Herunis Carna’s birth,

To assure this path makes its way

We Can’t afford to fail again this time —

The calm stoic voice of the girl within the violet bloom so said.

Those words,like a lightning bolt struck through her nerves, Lima jolted with such unfathomed shock, her eyes wider than saucers, staring down and afar in blank helplessness.

How does she know…?!

How do they know…?!

How do they know of the Herunis Carna…Yuri’s deepest Secret…Her Memories…?!

— Have faith, Sister—

The blue orb answered its twin confidently, hovering close by blooming its warm glow across the room.

— I have a feeling this time is different

Tis true, it is a good start to have one vial remaining here in our old place.

Better yet, we have Lima here to help us this time —

The purple orb did not reply, as if it had sensed a change in atmosphere behind them around Lima, who slightly stepped back, vigilantly.

Distrustfully.

She had yet again trusted too soon, Lima cursed herself deep down. She knew nothing about them, even what the two mystical lights had eluded ominous intentions to her, and though their voices had guided her temporary security, Lima could only assume one thing.

They too, are after the Herunis Carna, Yuri’s Powers, her Memories.

Just like Caesar Skyman.

Just like all the Demons.

Just like anyone that covets grand power

only to hurt her— in exchange for Yuri's life!

Standing there, just standing, Lima stared guiltily down at her pouch in sheer silence.

Her trembling fingers slowly letting go.

Never again…

Her heart thumped with grave determination as her world slowed in path, her vision blurring, by the tears that slightly swarmed to the rbim of her eyes as the fear, the memories all came flooding nonstop, by that notion, that sensation, that greatest fear and dread of all deep inside of Lima’s traumatized soul.

Never again shall I stand aside as they take everything from Yuri…!

As they break her apart…!

Never!!!

Lima tightened her grip around the hilt of her sheathed lightsaber.

Her resolve hardened like steel.

I…I have no other choice…

…They Leave me No other choice…Yuri…!!!!

.

.

.

“ Yuri? Must be at the Sensei’s office, is she not?”

“ Yuri would help out at the Headmaster’s office sometimes, she’s the class leader afterall. And the Headmaster needs her help.”

Mustering the courage to ask her fellow classmates who she was not yet too fond of, the answers Lima received were not too helpful to the very least.

The Sensei’s office was empty, she had checked. Yuri wasn’t there at all.

Turning away, keeping the truth to herself as Lima went on her way, looking for this mysterious Yuri, who she thought was the only person she could slightly trust in this rundown school grounds of crippled hope.

The only person that saw her as who she was, not her past, nor where she came from.

But strangely, this person had disappeared as mysteriously as she appeared in her life, and the curiosity to seek her outweighed the indifference she had held to protect herself.

Strolling down the broken corridors, Lima noticed an agile figure heading stealthy towards the backyard of the school.

It’s the boy, Lima remembered, the one sandy haired kid that seemed to always be around Yuri, following her around, talking and spending the most time with her, seeing that he might be most fond of her as Lima observed.

What’s his name though…Lima could but wonder, following behind the boy’s tracks.

“ Go away!” The boy hissed, as Lima blew her cover quite easily than she herself presumed.

“ You’ll blow our cover!”

“ You know where Yuri is?” Lima cared not of the boy’s qualms.

The boy paused uneasily, before nodded, shaking slightly. Anger palpable in each word he then spoke.

“ They are hurting her.”

Not much was there at the back of the school building, save an erected cement well shaped as a rectangular bunker which seemed but a usual object merged into environment, but as the boy tapped the invisible silver lid, unusually cleaned and dusted, in obscure sequence, the bunker opened, revealing an entrance heading down, down below into darkness.

Lima’s instincts of danger and treachery tingled with high alarm.

Voices lured Lima down as the two children entered the darkness, into the layers of steel and glass, monuments and tall equipment barging the narrow passage way, lights flickering on all sides, screens blazing on the walls, and behind it all, behind one last unbreakable glass,

was Yuri.

Seated on a chair, strapped at the ankles and wrists, with wires attached to her head on fours sides, just slightly above the cloth covering the poor girl’s wet eyes.

Yuri was sobbing.

Muffled were the wails and cries by the glass, but the aching was true, from each wince and struggle Lima witnessed, as the Headmaster, along with the janitor stood behind screens, activating their machinations,

probing into the mind of the one girl trapped in misery.

The Headmaster needs her help, they said.

They needed her to remember.

To reveal.

But it was torture.

.

.

.

— If you may, Lima? —

The boy’s voice asked as it’s bluish glow hovered slightly aback to let Lima take hold of the Light blood vial— Only to encounter a slash, an imminent saber blade of light coming straight its way, in desperate need to slay, to murder.

— Lima?!?!?!?! —

Like lightning, like spark, the blue glow darted out of harm's way, zigzagging across the hall until it stopped at the other side of the room, dazed by the unexpected assault.

Its attacker stood her ground, lightsaber raised.

— Lima…?! Why…What are you doing…?! We meant no—?!?! —

The Light blade sailed like a fired bullet once again, missing its mark by a millisecond.

“ I know what you two want!!!” Lima hollered, full of vengeance, indignant before treachery unfold.

“ You are like them…All of you…!!! None of you knew… how Yuri suffered! How she endured for all of your want?!?!?!”

With a prance, without sentiment, Lima was there before the blue glowing orb, weapon raised to pierce, to end, to destroy these two unwelcomed thieves to steal hers and Yuri’s and hopes and dreams. These deceiving balls of Light who sought to bring Yuri back, to continue her pain—

No more!

Yuri has suffered enough!!!!

— I won’t let you —

Blasting and simmering, were the clash of the heated blade against the violet blaze of the other orb that had flown afront to secure its blue counterpart’s safety.

— Sister, stop. —

The blue glow did try to convince its purple sibling with haste.

— Let me explain to her! —

But the purple one with a force blast, pushing Lima miles back, refused her brother’s offer.

— We cannot, now. Something is amiss —

— …Amiss…?! —

Hoisting her stance, Lima charged for another strike, without mercy.

But her charge was swayed soon enough!

Barking did the wolf cub Elza, alarmingly right behind Lima, as if the critter too was shocked and disapproving of Lima’s violent act of sudden attack.

“ Not now…Elza…!” Lima snarled, refusing any reason to stunt her.

— Lima, stop this at once. The World will end if you hinder this Path —

The girl’s voice reasoned calmly despite Lima’s blade threatening to pierce deeper and closer to its purplish core.

“ This World is already Ended!!” Lima sobbed, shrieking vehemently with a broken heart.

“ Look around you!! What is there left Now?! Lies…Lies and deceit, all of you! You would end Yuri in the weightless name of saving the world…But What about Yuri’s World!?!! Have you thought of her?!?! It’s you who is ending her World!!!!”

— Then you are lost —

Booming roars of Demons thundered from above the military stronghold, muffled screams, impending reckoning.

Elza’s barks, like a gong, a bell, to spread caution.

With a blast of electric charges and flare, the violet glow sent Lima flying further to the ether, crashing to the far side of the room, far far away from the Light Blood vial cradled within the rigid module’s iron grip.

Rage again was what pushed Lima back up to her feet, and vengeance powered her drive, as her prance quickened, her speed accelerating three fold, her stance killing.

— Lima, Stop!!! —

The blue glow had to cried, to no avail.

Lima would have slayed the violet orb ten times already, but her stride too was hindered by the most she did not expect.

Biting the heel of her trousers, was the wolf cub Elza, pulling Lima back with all its tiny cub might.

“ Not you too…!!” Lima breathed with utter despair as she shook her feet with grave reluctance, and so did Elza as she bit unrelenting.

Lima’s urge to strike the enemy, though strong and commendable, was not strong enough to kick a fellow canine friend.

The clanking, the demon growling, ceased not from the above.

— Pray, Lima, Listen, I beg thee!! —

The boy of the blue orb exclaimed with woe, hovering fast between Lima and his cohort.

— We seek not to exploit, nor plot for our own gain!

We are on a mission, and it's not what you presume!!—

“ Your words mean nothing before your deceit!!” Lima snarled, never giving in, and with a flourish, Lima swung her blade and severed the ties between her and the cloth which Elza bit, stomping forward to end the enemies.

Nothing could explain how this creation sought by Caesar Skyman could exist within this forlorn military quarters, and none of the mystery appeases Lima anymore, for she here now is a destroyer.

With a heavy heart, Lima had already so decided.

To slay for Yuri.

Small dents, however, started to sink down above from the ceiling of the basin, as if claws diving down. The claws.

— You have misunderstood us gravely —

The girl’s voice replied coldly, the urgence in her tone sharper than ever, while Lima dashed onward towards her in raged stance.

With emission of force fields and light sparks, the violet sphere managed to slow the angered girl down, but couldn’t impede her stride.

— We are not here to take anything, nor hurt Her in any way!

That is no good for us either!!—

— Lima, noble heart…! —

The blue orb finally also acted, shooting out torrents of light like ethereal wires and webs, pulling Lima backwards back from hurting anyone.

No words could persuade Lima now.

The indents at the ceiling above, however, deepened. The tips nearly piercing through the metal covering.

And only Elza wolf cub noticed, barking in urgence, yet the heat of argument and dispute drowned its grave warnings.

The blue orb thought hard before he finally decided to brave the deed. To reveal the Truth.

The violet orb immediately sensed her sibling’s readiness, to which she objected the most amongst all things. No, brother—!

— Don’t say it, brother—!!! —

But it had to be done.

So the Blue orb thus spoke.

— We are here to help,

By Her Will …!

By YURI’s own Will…!!!! —

The sun blade cleaving downward halted at the last second, right above the purple orb’s flare.

Panting with exhaustion, frustration, and confusion,

Lima finally looked up.

“ …Who’s WILL…?!” Lima’s questioned, her confusion more than the simmering anger.

“ What are you……Don’t you dare bring her in! Don't you dare think you can deceive me with her name!!” Her conflicted glance fixed upon the two orbs of light, who were but silent, fixed in the air before her, their colors and hue reflecting into Lima’s watery eyes.

Then Lima slowly turned her gaze, turning around, to the lone steel operation table on the side,

Where Yuri lay, in grave slumber.

Lima looked at the two glowing entities, then quickly back at Yuri, then back again at the two.

Synchronizing her heartbeat to her breath trying hard to calm, Lima’s vision focused. He perception cleared and details Lima had not discovered now lay plain before her eyes.

The mysterious Rune that had appeared upon Yuri’s belly,

shone the same colors, Blue and Violet,

As the two orbs now floating before her.

The violet glow finally answered reluctantly after long a momentary pause,

— Lima, —

— We ARE from the Herunis Carna—

Opening her dried lips to refute, only to gnash her teeth to pull back the tears, did Lima struggled to pull out her answer, to express her deepest rage, her guilt.

“...how…it’s…It’s not possible…?! How do you expect me… to believe…??!!” Lashing out yet pausing gradually, panting hard as Lima’s mind swirled.

Can it be…No. No!

But What if…Yes…? What if…they are truly who they allude they are…?

A tremor snaked down Lima’s spine as the inconceivable revelation brewed to shape in her nonstop mind.

What if… I was wrong, all along?

What if…All this time to save Yuri…were wasted…?!?!

What if…I am the one that’s been hurting Yuri… again and again…???

And then It eventually came.

Shattered Lima’s thoughts instantly were as the world erupted with deafening explosions all of a sudden. Lima’s senses turned upside down as the whole base shivered and rocked up and down, left to right. Nothing was left unmoved, and all could but shudder.

Lo, the breaking of sheer metal ripped the hall and reality with extreme clashing. Bursting of light dawning from above, as claws of Demon pus sunk down from high up on sides, while there, the snout, the armored sharp head of the one and only Demon Hound loomed in, its jaws bearing wide, its gaping teeth protruding, its Eyes, many red eyes of wrath and Vengeance, staring down.

Dazed, Lima could hear the clattering of glass under her feet as her vague vision followed a sharp glitter, rolling to the side.

The Vial of Light Blood rolled right next to her thigh, before bounding off, clanking further and further,

Towards the Archdemon’s mouth,

Where Yuri’s body was about to fell victim under the myriads of bladed teeth.

Mind blank, and her reasons and feelings Lima all cast aside,

Leaving one thing only by her side.

Her instinct.

And it told her to run.

To Run and grab Yuri back—

To Save Her—

As the whole facility collapsed all upon her.

.

.

…

………

.

.

.

.

The day was dark and the skies grey after Headmaster Caesar and janitor Castiel Bradson returned to the school after Cluadia’s launch to space, to face the atrocity they never would expect in a thousand years.

The infrasound defense mechanism was activated, yet this time instead of hiding as they have trained millions of times,

the children remained outdoors, for reasons unknown.

Thus perished, nearly All of them.

Including Yuri.

All but one child survived.

Lima. The one only child that stayed behind and hid, while the others didn't,

Was left behind, again, always.

Tears won’t stop as the sole surviving child sat at the end of the headmaster’s underground lab, now fashioned with metal desks with the stiff motionless bodies of her friends laid out, as if a morgue. Not even were there enough blankets to cover their last painful expressions.

The last two grownups silently stood before their lost future hopes shattered before their grave stern eyes.

Lo, after a long long period of dreary silence between sobs,

Caesar Skyman thus spoke—

“ To the Sea.”

This science man spoke, his eyes not tilted up to the skylights of the lab chamber.

“ The Sea. That is where we must seek.”

Lima had no intention of asking why or how. All she wished was a way to bring back her lost friends, in any way she could possibly help. And help she did.

For days, the two men and Lima went to the seashores, finding an abandoned cruiser and sailing it out to sea. Lima wasn’t sure how, but she knew Headmaster Caesar had a plan.

On the night of the seventh outing at sea, something from the net Lima pulled up was glowing like a star.

Radiating bluish light that drew an end to their seafaring search.

It was later back at the school lab did Lima know what the creature she caught actually was.

“ Turritopsis Dorhnii.” the old janitor Castiel Bradson explained to her in brief.

“ It is a kind of Jellyfish that theoretically…won’t perish. But not every Dorhnii has the power to we need, yet this one…This one Has It.”

“ Will it save them?” Lima asked immediately.

“ Will it save Yuri…and the others?!”

“ We shall soon find out.”

Watching from behind old Castiel Bradson Lima witnessed, as the Headmaster, with steel gloves shimmering under the dawning lab lights, scooped the blazing watery entity out of its captivity and held it high above his chest,

The Jellyfish blessed with foreign glow,

and raised it before the surgery tables of deceased children before him.

The creature’s watery membrane rippled with an unnatural manner as its tentacles seemed to twitch to a stunned pause at the mortifying scene it now faced, and to Lima’s sheer terror and shock,

The Jellyfish screamed.

It wailed, it shrieked, a sound unlike any other, tearing their eardrums with screeches of infinite sorrow that circled the barren Earth two-fold, cries of immense sadness that could penetrate any form of barrier and space.

Castiel shielded Lima instantly from the auditory attack, while Caesar Skyman stood still and calm, raising the morose Jellyfish high as he guided the appalled creature to the one and only child Caesar knew that meant everything.

“ She is here.” Lima recalled the Headmaster conversing with the screaming hydrozoan as they stopped right before Yuri’s stiff body.

“ Call upon her.” Lima heard Caesar whisper to the entity of light.

“ Call upon your longing, and grant us thy blessing—”

As if doing per Caesar Skyman’s bidding, the Jellyfish crawled out of Caesar’s palms, flowing its bubbly form onto Yuri’s peaceful body, and sank into the immobile child’s bosom.

Lima’s jaws dropped at the scene, and so did Bradson.

As soon as the hydrozoan merged in, Light, sheer bluish dazzling Light, burst out of Yuri, basking the child in a grand halo of sacred light as Yuri’s veins that were once drained and empty were refilled with bluish Light Blood of holy, and her pale morbid skin growing pinkish with life in slow reverse.

And to Lima’s sheer disbelief,

Yuri breathed.

“ Syringes, Cas. Hurry.” Caesar demanded as he tossed his steel gloves aside while the old janitor passed the Headmaster his metal plate of devices and tools.

With extreme concentration and sophistication, Caesar drew the blood, sparkling like a liquid of stars, out quickly, gathering them in thin cylindrical vials and casing them in a freezer box, drawing twelve vials in total and with them vials of Light Blood, Caesar injected them thoroughly into the other children lying around Yuri, and as quickly as Lima could have imagined, the other children accepted of the New Blood of Yuri, breathed also and were seemingly revived.

A Miracle, Lima could think of no other word to describe.

It’s a Miracle.

With tears of joy flooding down her cheeks, Lima raced forth to Yuri’s bed, despite Caesar Skyman’s instant refusal that was a second too late, Lima woke Yuri up from the long slumber.

“ Stay back!!!” Caesar roared at Lima, to see that Yuri’s eyes have opened, Wide.

Staring straight at Lima’s golden pupils.

And it was at that moment, that Lima realized, from that wide hollow stare,

that it was not Yuri anymore.

The girl in Yuri’s body started to tremble, her whimpering aggravating into a stressful moan, and escalating into a tremendous series of excruciating screams. At the same time, the child struggled in seizure madness, writhing its thin limbs banging them all onto the metal surgery tables, and flipping the plates over. The surgery tools scattered onto the marble floor in ear-piercing clatter as the chaos and horror forced Lima to the floor, her legs numb with terror as she watched the old janitor and the Headmaster try all they could to press the screaming girl back down.

But before they could cease what Lima thought was Yuri’s painful episode,

the other children too, started.

No matter how hard she covered her ears, how tight her eyes shut, Lima could not escape. And all that was forced into Lima’s head, was the agonizing screams of her friends, reawakened from their painful decease with their senses filled with nothing but fear,

hurt,

confusion,

and unresolvable torture of the tormented mind.

.

.

Days after the night at the lab, old Castiel Bradson came to Lima who sat alone on a small hill in the middle of the empty playground, where she used to play with her friends.

“ Caesar has found a way to restrain their fear, and contain their confusion.” Castiel Bradson spoke gently.

“ It is fine to see them now.”

“ It’s not fine…” Lima sobbed, leaving not her last place of solace.

“ Why is it everywhere I go…there is death…Everywhere I am, others suffer…I…I can’t…Castiel Sensei…I used to wish for nothing but those that have passed to come back to life…and Yuri too, but…But all their pain, their suffering…those experiments and screams and all that…I…I’d rather they leave in peace than be dragged back as strangers wearing the faces of my friends!... Castiel Sensei…What should I do…? How should I face them now they are like this…?!”

The old janitor gave a long morose sigh and sat down next to the sobbing Lima, gently patting the girl’s head in gentle comfort.

“ Live, Lima,”

Bradson replied at length.

“ Live, to honor their memories, to protect what they have forgotten.

Live, to stay by their side and help them, to either remember one day or build their own Futures.

Live, Lima, for them,

for Yuri,

for yourself.

For the Greater Tomorrow.

You will be their silent Guardian,

and they your bliss and rest.

Live, Lima.”

Live on, I beg of thee…! ”

.

.

…

………

.

.

“ There is a fundamental notion in the grand picture you have not yet grasped.

One that only Archdemons could discern.

One that I will show thee,

without sentiment.”

Archdemon Plague so spake.

And without sentiment, Vernui obliged.

“ Show me then.” Vernuii insisted bravely of the Archdemon’s invite.

“ Show me what is behind thy fears and schemes. Show me this notion that powers thy wrath and want.”

Vernuii could sense a palpable reluctance in the Archdemon’s vigilant stance, as if in fear of invoking with words a truth that would bring greater havoc than the Demons now ensued upon the dreaded lands as of now.

Archdemon Plague is afraid, of the thought of something yonder. Something Vernuii surely did not know,

Yet.

What could this information be that only Archdemons could decipher?

Or was it just a ruse of this sly avian Demon Lord to stall his actions?

“ Very well.”

Archdemon Plague spake, and its expression of vigilance and reluctance transformed slightly into those of sneering glee.

What was a fearing carrion was now a proud Demon rejoicing, as if his schemes were finally at play, and Vernuii the one being snared in the trap!

“ Then I shall reveal to thee, not with words, but through the eyes of my all-seeing gale.”

And before Vernuii could hesitate to resist with his sword, a gust of powerful wind swept through Vernuii whole, like a giant’s hand grabbing him high into the air. The world tittered, and the sky was below Vernuii’s wake before he realized a blasting Light, like the sun engulfing all swallowing his mere existence.

Vernuii didn’t see any of this coming, and he uttered a cry. But no sound made it out of his lips.

He was nonexistent.

For that very moment.

“ This, is the end of the Path.” Archdemon Plague’s voice echoed in the nether.

Light.

Nothing, but sheer Light.

Vernuii tried to see through this blaring light but all he could discern was pale nothingness.

A Pale Void, with but one glowing eminance, growing and growing, larger and brighter in the very center of All.

The Center of the Herunis Carna,

its excellence dazzling before Vernuii’s disbelieving eyes.

Light.

All was but naught.

Nothing here, nothing there,

Nothing up, nothing down.

But Light.

Vernuii felt his own existence sinking into the pale null, devoured into its faceless rankor.

He tried to utter a cry, but no shout came out of his lungs.

There was no lungs within him anymore to begin with.

He was not anymore.

Nothing.

His eyes see not himself, nor anything whatsoever.

Vernuii wasn’t even sure if his eyes were seeing, or not seeing at all.

He was nonexistent, before the only one thing relevant now and ever.

The Herunis Carna, in its truest form.

“ What you see is the calculated possibility of the Future, through the all-seeing eyes of all Archdemons’ Core. ”

Plague’s voice spoke asudden, gravely reverberating within Vernuii 's diminished presence.

“ A fate the Nanomic Algorithm tried to warn their offspring, to avert from. ”

“ What does this Mean?!?!” Vernuii managed to channel the question through his senses and reach out, drastically losing any physical sensation of his own self and form but only commune through the force of the mind.

“ What Fate is this?!”

“ It is the Future The Herunis Carna so demands. ”

The Archdemon 's voice slit through Vernuii’s soul like a cold blade.

“ The Future which the Girl…Yuri so Holds. ”

Vernuii tried hard to process.

“ There is nothing…!” he could but blurt out the obvious in astonishment.

“ Exactly. ” was the Archdemon’s cold answer, without sentiment.

“ The Herunis Carna is a Power beyond any other, and it calls upon a grand renewal, an astounding Reamalgamation,

A Pristine Reset.

All that you know, All that you seek,

All that you Were, Are, and Will be,

Will no longer be of significance, for there is no more of those that once existed, but Beyond.

We Will All Perish. And what’s left of the now, our struggles and strife, our vengeance, our want,

Shall be but a Final Radiance.”

“ YOU JEST!!!!”

Vernui cried to the heavens as gravity seized him back, sucking him through a formless tunnel away and away, further and further away from the Blinding sphere.

“ I don’t believe you…No…! Let me In!! Let me See for myself!!!” Vernui struggled to dive deeper, only for it all to shrivel, the light shrinking to a twinkle afar.

“ Let me See what is within!! Let me See— What Yuri Sees!!!!”

But that Right was not his all along.

And before he knew it, Vernuii crashed back to solid reality to reality, and his knees, powerless like wet noodles, failed to hold his fall as the young terrified man fumbled drastically upon dusty soil, stupefied by the vision he had foreseen.

“ Lies…lies and deceit…!! Your deceptions work on me no more!!” Vernuii argued relentlessly, refusing the projections of the Nanomic mindsight.

“ Yuri would never erase this world. Your wanton visions are but to befuddle!!!”

“ She Has No choice.”

Plague boomed without Sentiment. And so explained further the carion Demon.

“ Her path is sealed within its mechanisms. You see but could never understand. The Engine has chosen her, and she’s powerless before the Herunis Carna’s Will. Illusions are deceptive. Yet what you see is not of fabrication, but of possibility. A Result our Nanomic senses have calculated., We Witness its coming, so do all the other Archdemons linked to the mind of our Demonic Origin. Tis a Fate we strive to avert at all cost.”

Archdemon Plague loomed over the stunned Vernui, as the young man tried to collect his marbles and hoist himself up slowly with his shuddering arms and feet.

“ That is why we Demons seek the Herunis Carna. For if we stand idle, our existence shall no longer be of relevance. Our purpose, our History, our Desires, and Qualms…!!! Our disparity and revenge!! Shall all be but dust in the eternal blaze! Our struggles to return to glory… will be deemed meaningless! Meaningless, boy!”

Turning the young man with his dominion over the winds, poising the youngster’s gaze with its cloaked phantom shroud upon the rotten pus-swarmed land, the Archdemon ushered Vernuii to see afar alongside him, at the far North, far far away, at the icy plains at the northern brink of the long continent, and the brim close to grey Sea,

where the military facility was, where Yuri had landed yonder,

Where Lo, seas of Demonry had swarmed through the compound, led by two enormous formidable Demons of wrath and caliber, breaking the walls and unearthing the cement runways and reaching the snowy plains in a ferocious hunt, for Yuri’s Light,

after Yuri alone.

Vernui’s eyes widened in dreadful mortification.

“ And so it seems,” Archdemon Plague crooned with sinister sublime

“ That the blinding of the Light has finally been vanquished.”

Once again,

Vernui could but stare, on his knees,

As he was before his perishing past, full of regret.

.

.

…

………

.

.

The piercing cold that should have came with the wind was nonexistent as Lima expected of the facility’s collapse, neither did the descending iron frameworks and steel panels crush her indefinitely.

She felt nothing, lost of sensation of her limbs, her body, nor her surroundings.

She could but sense a force blooming far before her, without seeing it, yet it was clear it was there right in front of her, growing, beaming.

It was Light.

Nothing else, but sheer Light.

So…this is how it is like…

Lima felt, at long last, a thin sensation of relief.

But the lifted weight in her heart soon sunk back as her remembrance of the past, the last few seconds of strife, came gushing in like a stream in memory, and all she knew, all her remnant senses could distinguish,

was anguish.

As she fell, deeper, deeper, deeper beyond, into the depth of infinite blaze.

Deep into its core and within.

What could have been, If I had gave the Light blood sooner to Yuri?

Would we be able to fight back? To escape?

Escape where?

Where can we go? Where can we be, at peace?

Where can Yuri go?

The world wants her,

The skies hunts her,

The lands crave her,

All of them wants to break her apart.

…I…

…I did no wrong…

…I did what is best for her…

I protected her from all the more hurt, the pain, suffering…!

I did what I Must…!!!

…NO…

…I did not.

I did not protect Yuri. I did nothing.

I did nothing to help her.

All I did was for myself.

to serve my anger.

…my…regret.

…

……

…I am sorry…

……I am sorry……Yuri…

………I Am Sorry…YURI…!!!!!!

— LIMA —

Lima’s heart skipped a beat, even though her senses of a heart were none.

She was not alone.

She was not alone, in this sea of Light, this core of Bright.

She was Never Alone.

Lima panned her gaze, left then right, again and again, only to see the path of white blazing beyond her wake, without a sign of any other.

But surely there was, not to be seen, but to be revered with the pristine senses, of the soul to which Lima followed, drifting willingly towards the yonder luminance, after the voice she believed she knew, after her utmost longing, into the Light.

And it was not Light, not a sphere of blooming nor a bulb of extended flare,

But lines and runes, circling and ringed to form a sophisticating spherical maze, each path lighting onward, on and on, on and on.

Until one of them strayed out, a gleaming line to the beyond, unyielding, unbending, confident and powerful.

Lima’s senses followed with, and within that beam of radiance, Lima felt immense force as if the traveling glow carried with it a world, a series of happenings along its trail. And indeed it did. Within the lone beam, there was herself, there was Yuri, there was everything there ever was they encountered together, the school, the children, Sensei Castiel, Skyman, Vernui, Starbreakers, Androids, Airships, Skyworld, Demons, Nanomic Scourges, everything,

of how they met, how they were separated, and joined again in different times, striving across events all through days that have passed since, playing all at once, in timely order.

It was their life, their history. Their precious past, blissful and bleak; of joy, of lament; of triumph and defeat; of rejoice, of loss;

of Lima, of Yuri.

of All of them.

Each beam, each line of the circular great rune, carries a Memory of its own World, each similar to the next at first, differing slightly midway, then splitting apart far out to their own sides of the bright beyond.

One after the other, the beams all spread out zigzagging at once in full speed, showing Lima, blazing to her soul and memory the happened, the happening, the will happen.

Things, events, people and creatures, worlds and cultures, wars and bliss, that have yet to be revealed, flashing in a spark that traced to the infinity.

There are still so many more out there.

Every possibility, every past, present, and Future that could possibly occur, gave birth out of that one center of the remarkable spheric rune formed from roots of each and every blooming path,

The Herunis Carna.

Surrounded by golden light trails, beaming across to all sides, Lima felt their warmth, their struggle, their weight that they carry through and through. While some traveled still nonstop, some glows stopped at an abrupt turn, ending short. While others lasted longer, ending in drastic rigid twists. Some simple vanished as it pointed yonder, and a few led on and on, to places none could imagine.

Possibilities, their stories infinite.

Lima felt it, and the notion occurred to her slowly.

There is always a way.

“ Yes.”

“ …Yes…”

Lima turned around.

There, floating alongside her, drifting white with sheer white garment of pale light,

was Yuri. Not the Yuri that is.

But the Yuri she knew, and loved.

The Yuri that Always Was.

Of the same age and size as Lima herself.

It was like yesterday, the days living at the dilapidated school; like yesterday, the day of departure was.

“ …I missed you…” Lima croaked, feeling warmth through the tears of her corporal state.

“ …I missed you, Yuri……I tried…but I couldn’t…”

“ You did what you believed was best for me.” The Yuri whispered, holding Lima’s tiny hands in hers gently.

“ You never gave up on me. You never gave up on the Memories we share.”

And locking the sobbing Lima in her astral embrace, the Yuri softly consoled.

“ Thank you, Lima, for trying your best.”

“ I did not try hard enough…!!!” Lima refused adamantly of any consolation for her failures.

“ I…I made the wrong choices…I don’t know what to do…!! They are all going to hurt you!!!”

“ Not all of them.”

The sincerity, the ensuring warmth in her cadence.

“ You doubt because you care, you never trust because you know it hurts. But Lima,”

her soothing palms carried Lima’s face close up to hers.

“ The Light. Follow it, Lima. Follow, not just any Light.

Follow My Light.”

And with a swift gentle wave, the Yuri summoned one traveling light path to Lima’s presence, showing the dumbfounded Lima the contents of the glistening flow within their grasp.

Within that rushing light, Lima saw herself on the floor of the hall underneath the base in snow, as the huge Canine Demon roared ferociously while twin beams of light, violet and bright blue emitting out of the astral spheres, pushed it back away from Lima’s unconscious body. Elza the wolf cub was licking her cheeks to try wake her up from intense slumber.

This was where she came from.

This was her path.

And the path was at a halt, stopping at the very moment shown to Lima.

“ You have made it halfway,”

The Yuri caressed the light path with care, carrying closer, higher slowly.

“ The voyage is just about to start. Here, let me help you get back on track.”

“ What?” Lima thought she didn’t hear correctly, which is a pretty common occurrence when talking to this Yuri before.

“ My Light will always be there to guide you. I know you will always never give up on me, but Lima, you must promise me also,” Hands clasped, their eyes linked in gaze.

“ …anything.” Lima breathed.

“ Promise me, to never give up on yourself.”

“......I promise.”

Yuri smiled.

“ I am so proud of you, Lima.”

And with that, Yuri pulled the path backwards.

Slightly.

Before Lima’s world erupted into pale nothingness, she saw the golden light chains, clinging onto Yuri’s wrists. Pulling her deeper and deeper, into the Eternal Core of the Herunis Carna.

That gaze, though glad to see her,

sealed a faint melancholy deep within.

“ I…I will bring you back…!!” Lima cried out from the depth of her heart, her welling feelings.“ I PROMISE…!!!I WILL BRING YOU BACK!!!”

Lima yelled out with all her life force.

“ I WILL SET YOU FREE—YURI!!!!!!!!”

.

.

…

………

.

.

Gasping for air after what seemed like awakening from a deep pitch black dream, Lima’s world lit up once more.

There she was, standing at one end of the cold metallic basement hall. Luminant glows of both violet and lightish blue hovered a small distance away, their eminence seemed to gaze at her with surprise and silent awe.

Lima looked up in haste, checking if the ceiling was about to collapse.

Indeed, indenting claws were pushing down in quiet but straining creaks.

Elza wolf cub was barking warningly to draw all their attention.

Her Light saber deactivated, holding no blade to sever.

The Light Blood vial, stationed and intact, in the storing vassal.

Something had changed, no. EVERYTHING had changed.

She remembered having a hot dispute between both the sentient light spheres. She remembered the Demon Hound crashing down on them and seizing Yuri before she could react.

But that was no more, for that was yet meant to happen,

in Five Seconds.

She was back in the past, Five Seconds before impact.

Four.

“ I think she knew what happened.” The girl’s voice from the violet orb speculated quickly as Lima looked up, realizing that aside from just violet blaze, the sentient glow also consisted of a faint glistening gentle hue.

A warm blaze that she had sworn to follow.

And the light blue orb did possess it too.

Three.

“ Hurry, Lima. There’s not much time!”

To Lima’s ears, the purple orb’s voice seemed not at all distant and hollow like before, but as if a person, a young girl as old as she, was present and asking her to do good.

For Yuri, and All!

“ Hold on to the Light Blood for us!” The blue orb suggested in hurry as the two, brother and sister of Light dashed to both sides of the hall, gathering immense light force and blazing charges, ready to strike the incoming great foe from above.

The boy’s voice, ringing with such familiarity that Lima thought she knew that voice, from a moment lost in time.

Two.

“ NO.” Lima turned around despite the two blissful orb’s suggestions, rushing opposite from the Light Blood Vial’s presence.

“ I’ll get hold of Yuri. You two support me from the sides.”

And with a strong, determined nod to her loyal wolf cub, Lima so ordained.

“ Elza, To the Light Blood Vial!!”

“ WOOF!!” The critter dashed to action.

They sprang, all to action. Ready for impact.

One.

The Ceiling erupted with hulking force, caving in by horrendous weight and form as the rabid screech merging with the piercing cold winds of the north, burst all down to them all.

The Demon Hound crashed into the scene, mouth wide, teeth agape. Aiming its devilish incisors at powerless Yuri.

But this time,

It faced Justice.

With a cry, Lima swung her sun blade above full circle, sending blows of Light right into the gapping snout of the Huge Hound, and also to all sides, cutting tubes and machinery all over the place. Light and Dark, colliding into an amalgamation of fierce physics, resulting into a unrelenting explosion of essence bright and dank, pushing all back with raw impact.

The Demon Hound reared with confusion, faltered as it crash landed down to the hall, with all its Demon hoards, frenzied, anguished, in rage, all sorts of dark beasts falling also without coherence under the blast that came from Lima’s slash.

Smoke was everywhere, but the Demons could sense their target nearby, moving in quick stride. They prance in chase—to be served beams of bluish and purplish light from all sides, frying them petty Demons into pulps and ash dispenses. They were cornered in their own smog, felled by powers beyond them from all sides.

As the Demons squeal and moan in utter incoherence, Lima rushed with all her legs could take her, caring Yuri behind her back while she summoned her golden fluidic armor once again out of her golden necklace, shielding herself and Yuri as she travesered the ashen smoke she made with her sunlight slash, following Elza’s senses as the wolf cub darted to safety, the Light Blood vial gripped firmly between its jaws.

The two glowing orbs followed also behind Lima and Yuri, shooting myriads and showers of light beams and light fangs, pushing the dark tide back with sheer force.

“ There is a crack in the wall ahead!” The blue glow notified the tiny fellowship of four, including a wolf cub.

“ Then we’ll get through from there!” Lima hollered, hurrying to Elza’s pace.

“ How far is it—”

Before Lima’s question could be answered, right from the side, sharp rows of teeth came diving down upon Yuri and Lima. The Huge Demon Hound knew where they were this whole time, and with a munch so fierce so instant, nothing could ever escape its jaws—But that is not Lima.

Raising her saber of Light, hoisting the blade diagonally before her and Yuri, pressing hard onto the ignition of her hilt as the golden beam blade enlarge, large enough to block the strike of the Demonic jaws of doom, pushing her and Yuri back miles off course.

“ LIMA!!!!” both orbs cried out as they immediately fired their light forces, staggering the Demon but halting not its path. With a swinging tail whip of a 360 turn, all of them, Lima, Yuri, Elza, and the blue and purple orbs of Light, all were separated from each other.

The tail swiped was a basic move, but a hurtful one in nature, swinging Lima hard and straight to the metal wall aside.

Shielding Yuri with tight embrace, Lima accepted the whole blow, crashing down to the ground, coughing out blood from her insides.

With her blade struck to the ground, Lima pushed herself up, with Yuri upon her she still pushed. Harder and harder it was for Lima to stand, from the rubble she managed to pump hope into her veins, to straighten her stance.

The Hound is coming for Yuri…Lima pressed the hilt ignition even harder.

Come What May…Lima pantted, pointing the tip of her saber forth.

Come on here…You Demon Scum!!!!!!!

Its footsteps boomed as the shadow loomed with ferocity, guiding its sharp snout towards the target. Its each clawed stomp sending ripples across the entire hall.

Its breathing snarl, like the raging waves of dark sea, in fury.

Lima took one last breath, steadying her blade.

“ Lima!”

By her shoulders, the two glows, blue and purple, came to Lima’s sides, left and right, closer than ever before as the Demon Hound charged rapidly forth at them.

“ Lima, you can’t go against this one Demon alone.” The blue one advised with much earnestness.

“ You too are gravely injured !”

“ It is not just one Demon.” The purple one analyzed, still keeping her calm before any raging storm.

“ Of proportions like this, with hate and Fury so gathered to such extent, and a mind so condensed in Wrath, it is very much an Archdemon. An Archdemon that feeds on Vengeance upon the Old World, upon The Hatred upon Memories of countless Betrayals.

Archdemon Vengeance, it so be. One and only.”

Indeed, one must speak of such beast gravely at its presence, for its grudge thickens to form its ghastly frame as its rage emblazens its advence. One such being, born out of many tormented dreg remains of humanity’s copied nanomic minds, coincide and seethe into a form that seeks nothing but punishment upon the age that wronged them.

Fearsome life forces merging into one, creating a Demon of multitude, a Demon of magnitude, an Archdemon, of Vengeance. In the future tongue of the later Kingdeniom to be born centuries after us, the Elden Kingword this tragic Archdemon shall leave behind shall be the word Vengir. From the name told on and on through generations of the children of Light, the Mistunotami here we call them, that contains the wrath and weight of its loathe; the fear and respect upon its tragic grace that is Arkzel Vengirnosawrine. Vengir being the modern Kingword form of Vengeance, as the sound of -Sawr- phrased out of the depth of the throat conveying the namehood of them graver beings that shall be known and feared as the root term of an Archdemon.

Much thought behind the word, that could do no justice for its devilish might of now that loomed all over strongwilled Lima, unrelenting and reluctant to settle without a piece of the Herunis Carna.

“ Haste not, Lima!” The voilet force orb ushered Lima to a observe before a rash encounter.

“You cannot possibly survive it in lone combat right now.”

“ Do I seem to have any other choice…?!?!” Lima croaked, spitting a mouthful of crimson blood to a side.

“ Yes.” The blue orb replied sincerely.

“ You just have to put your trust in us.”

“ And we to you.” The purple one answered.

“ For Yuri. For The Futures…We will give our all to you, Lima. But we need yours also.”

The rumbling intensed as the Archdemon Hound accelerated in frenzy.

Lima looked at them blissful light orbs both in silent contemplation.

“ The Light. Follow it, Lima. Follow, not just any Light.

Follow My Light.”

“ Can you do that, Lima?”

Crashing forth at full speed, lunging with a deafening roar, Archdemon Vengeance raised one sharp-clawed paw, bashing it down on where Lima stood, ending it all with that one fatal move.

Elza wolf cub howled as it rushed with its all to see that last moment of devastation, Light Blood vial in mouth, trembling in despair.

But Lo, the paw lifted up, and the Archdemon saw that it felled nothing.

No spec was there underneath save the crater it so punched formed upon the wall.

No flesh, no blood.

No Regrets.

“ Over here, you overgrown wet dog.”

The Archdemon Hound pulled another 360 tail swipe at the voice right behind it, and there vividly, a bursting shadow zoomed sideways, evading the wall-slicing tail whip entirely, landing in a flourish to Elza’s side as the wolf cub looked up, overjoyed.

Clad not just in armor, but in bladed flare and twinkling spark, in sharp flame and everlasting warmth, of burning wings of bluish fire wrapped around Lima’s nape like a resourceful scarf, and six hovering blades of purplish haze circling her with utmost intimidaiton and confidence.

Ethereal was the upgraded armor emblazoned upon Lima’s old golden suit, and illuminating was its presence.

Lima was more, not just by physical achievements, but her vision and Hope.

She was more.

Picking the loyal wolf cub up onto her shoulders with a gentle pat, and also patting Yuri’s light blue hair leaned upon her shoulder behind her, Lima took a deep breath of anticipation.

“ Hang on tight.” Lima whispered before the storm.

With a roar the Demon charged, with a prance it was already sending its fanged jaws to Lima, sending the devouring straight to Lima’s door! But Lima gave it a kick at the nose with her ethereal golden blue and purple flamed leggings and leapt off straight high up, drawing her light saber longer than ever was three fold, with the purple hovering blades all together like six blades at the ready, before Lima let go of it all, the steam and the frustration, all the emotions that she have ever bore, sending them all out in series of lavishing slashes from up and down, left and right, and from directions that weren’t even possible to achieve. All at once the severing all took place, cutting the Archdemon Hound from head to toe to belly and torso, not a corner was uncut.

Six purple blades thrashing on their own, as Lima thought she saw a faint ethereal form of a girl in purple hue wielding each assisting beam blade. And the blue fiery wings behind her, like warm arms curled around her nape gently, of trustful care.

Lima knew them, blue and purple energy glows both naught, but at that moment of connection, of contact, Lima believed she knew them, or perhaps, known each other already far after.

But focusing back, Lima saw that all those strikes she just made were but scratches upon unbreakable metallic dark hide!!!!

With a rearing upward dive, like a taunt to all Lima’s struggle, Archdemon Vengeance hit Lima with all its gigantic mass and horrifying velocity, sending Lima straight up to the skies from the gapping hole it came and could have sent her to space with that sheer utter force of a Archdemon, ten times the speed of the quickest trains ever to roam upon The Old Earth, But Lima did not go to space, for she too was of unbreakable spirits accompanied by the forces that came straight from the Herunis Carna!! All Light from the Beyond came to Lima’s aid!!!!

And they aided her in the form of sibling biforce, blue and purple, with wings of extreme heat and flame Lima repositioned in the air to stability, and without putting any second to waste, Lima whirled her light saber in a sword dance unlike any other, of elegance also of power, of brute force also of tender love, to cut all and also heal all; a swording that was only able to be achieved through Lima’s senses of the Herunis force running through her veins and nerves. Every cell in her body felt the tingling blessings of the Herunis Carna, and her eyes see not just one Demon Hound, but a million Demon hounds charging at her through multiple possibilities of time and space, and she too could see herself reacting in ten thousand ways all through the multiverse.

It had happened before, and it could also never have happened in the first place.

All Lima saw, were possibilities that were infinite, endless Hope.

Yet her swordplay wasn’t finished yet, and as she drew her saber in the skies as she flew, the six purple energy blades followed suit, cutting all over the Archdemon’s body and soul as the gigantic Hound gave chase through the skies and keeping out above the military fortress. Across abandoned watchtowers and hollow war centers did the young girl and Demon clash; Lima’s Light, against Archdemon Vengeance’s Darkness.

With a cry the hazard wolf released countless dark spuing souls of equal hatred and vengeance in immeasurable amounts and anger, all like pitch black shooting stars firing across the grey heavens showing towards Lima, whose eyes have seen it all happen before and never before, in various times and moments of the possibilities of life and time, seeing herself dodging, successfully and failing in all of them adventurous attempt, thus finding the one way, guided by the blue wings and purple fly blades, Lima darted the myriads and myriads of wallowing souls grabbing and snatching in the air, zigzagging and cutting them down altogether in a flurry sword dance.

And through all that cutting and crashing, Lima sensed the linking between her Light force and the Demon’s Dark Soul, pulling her senses far beyond the existing realm, into a place where her mind could see, could hear, could feel—

The calming fur coat her palms slide, of the firm back of a competent distinguished animal—

“...No…!”

Lima ceased her cutting and halted her blade as she kicked the air, dashing down below to an abrupt landing, escaping far far away from the Demon Hound, as far as she could possibly flee.

Both the blue and purple emissaries of Light were puzzled as they all landed onto vast glacier field below the high plateau where the fallen military base sat hollow.

“ What is it, Lima?!?! We had the upper hand!” The blue spirit orb so argued.

“ It’s not about upper hands or any fighting…!” Lima breathed heavily, looking to her side at Elza the wolf cub, whose eyes were fixed also onto the yonder where the Archdemon howled to the murky above in wailing in fury, letting all souls vengeful out of its spiked metallic back and falling like rotten meteorites all across the ice field, each dropping soul rising once more into a deformed Demon of wrath, as the canine lord Demon made its way down from the high ground along with its armies of the damned.

Seeing all this, the wolf cub was silent, whining quietly in such melancholy.

Lima patted the critter, as her fingers touched the collar around the loyal wolf cub, feeling the carvings of the rune-like name engraved upon the hard tarnished leather.

Elza.

“ …I understand now.” Lima patted the small wolf in deep reconciliation.

“ I’ll do what I Must.”

But before Lima could do anything she could—The Demons!!!!

The seeking Demons from before, all rushed out of dusk and shadow, ambushing them from all sides of the vast glacier front, joining the Archdemon with all ferverous pursuit. They had already anticipated Lima and Yuri’s escape, waiting for them to come out!

All of them charged, and one by one, Lima slew them down with much sentiment, severing each and every Haiju, Kaubog, Badingo, and Porcupine, any shape and size of Demon as their vengeful souls contact somehow through the connections of the Herunis Carna that Lima so had wield in heart, feeling their frustration, their confusion, their loathing, their want, while none lasted under Lima’s potent blade as our swordmaiden slew with tears brimming she pushed back.

She would not stop.

Seas of dark pushed and roamed, but the center never fell, roomed within a wave of sword dancing, and hovering blades that replicate each refined move Lima inacts upon the enemies.

Lima would not fall.

Lima would not falter.

Lima would not give in, nor would she give up.

She had promised Yuri— To Never Give Up On Herself.

And this is how she does it, to honor their promise.

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“ That Engine of Miracles…can grant blessings, as well as destroy them.”

Archdemon Plague hissed with grave determination, as with the side of its eye it peaked at the fields million miles away, where its fellow Archdemon comrades were at work, where carnage ensued in seeking the Herunis Carna, but no sign of achieving the sole goal of its scheming as he speak.

“And it is up to thee, boy, Chosen Avenger, to seek what is granted yours, and lead us fallen kind back to our rightful place!!!

WHAT SAY THEE?!?!?!?!”

The Carian Demon awaited for answer,

but all he received was a cold reply.

“ Have it ever occurred to you, Plague,” Vernuii spoke, after a grave quiet pause.

“ That perhaps we are never meant to go back?”

The two,

Man and Demon,

stared at each other as the world around them moved slowly in its morbid path.

The wind, carrying the howls and screeches of defeated demons, swept across their ears.

“ What is meant to be is not of our concern.”

The Archdemon replied at length, turning away from the young man to face the legion of monsters and beasts far away, to discern the battlefield with its own eyes.

“ You Want to Go back, hence My being. Your Want, boy. All, Our, Want, is the true calling. The Want is what matters.”

And with a wave of its thin-boned arm, the rotten feathers of its pestilent wings following its heave, more Demons of the land answered to the Archdemon’s calling and roared in spontaneous answer. More acres of Pus and Darkness rose, and the second wave of Demonry moved forth like a sentient flood towards yonder.

“ The moment is nigh.”

Plague mused, sensing unease in the heralding wind.

“ It is in thy grasp, boy. If you would take It—”

Ripping of meaty rot flesh halted the winds and sound at that precise moment as Plague’s commanding arm stopped mid-air as the Demon lord looked down, to see the dark blade it wrought out of its own presence of pestilence, stabbing out of its humanoid chest, straight through the core.

“ I would take you.” the cold threatening voice of Vernui hissed to Plague’s ear

“ If you dare touch a hair upon Yuri…One More Time!!!!!”

“ Alas…! What I have been trying to tell you…Is it all but a waste of Time?!?!” With a pulling rage, Plague yanked his bodily form aside, letting the blade swerve through its chest and cast itself free from the sword, but a horrendous gash the weapon did leave behind.

“ Is it by succumbing the only way you could understand, My Will?!?!?!”

“ Never shall I succumb to a path of destruction, a path to hurt the ones I love…!!” Vernui thrusted his sword aside, hurtling the dark blood off his blade as he prepared another fatal strike.

“ I would rather perish…than live victorious in a world without her…Without Yuri!!!!!”

“ DAMN FOOL!!!!!”

With a leap of an angered Tengu beast, Archdemon Plague whooshed up high, clawing hands at the ready to dive and ranch Vernui’s neck and crush its emissary to the ground to obedience, but just a blink after, Vernui was also in the sky, and not just in flight, but leaping face to face to the Archdemon’s humanoid presence, tightly wringing the carrion lord’s neck before it could wring his!

“ ?!?!?!”

Archdemon Plague gufawed as its world twisted and turned and before it knew, hard soil crushed upon its spine like a speeding airship.

Dazed, and in frustrated marvel, the Archdemon croaked.

“ …How…?!?! How is it you have become my equal…?!?!”

“ You have split yourself thin by spreading your wings, hovering your rotten presence to control the field to snatch Yuri’s Memory.”

Vernui snarled in deduction.

“ While I entered your mind, like how you parasited mine. You thought you have chained me within you, but NO!! It is I that have trapped you within Me!!!!”

Roaring relentlessly, Archdemon Plague tried to fight back to break Vernui’s grasp, but could not! Vernui had spoken true. He had spread his Demon powering further away, leaving only its humanoid form to guard its Demon Core. With the boy now gaining his strength against him, Plague would fall.

And most concerningly, the boy, his binding Emissary to link to mortality, no longer heeds his orders.

Due to Sentiment…!

And through Sentiment I shall bargain thee…!!!!

To Vernui’s surprise, Plague let go of both arms of combat and relinquished struggle, laying there underneath him in surrender.

“ Before you rash, boy, let I remind you of the situations we face…”

Vernui halted, sensing through the link of darkness that Archdemon Plague’s concern was true has something to speak of much gravity.

“ Then Speak it now, before I change my mind.”

Plague grinned snidely. His speech is his upper hand.

“ Then you shall listen, and be enlightened…!”

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[...to be continued......]