"Do you recall the heaves of yesteryear?" asked a masked man to a cat. "A breath of green with echoes of buzzing ripples. The sight in delight as the shades in labor wag with whispers of melancholia: this breeze, so supple like a headrest for the living. In as much glee are the colors, taking roots from another yesteryear, as the gleams trickle down their self-built hollow. Those lovely hefts, there above us both, are secular as much as amorous. This tale of yesteryear, retold much in different light by bards and poets who embraced and were embraced by life itself. This, my friend, is what we fight to preserve."

The man who was getting lost in his own words finally came to a stop and turned to a cat in a strange costume. Not letting the beast respond, he manifested a table from the river he was walking on and sat on a chair that promptly formed from the riverbed. The cat, taking the hand of the young child who was following along in his paw, walked toward the bank and then atop the water. He wasn’t in the least surprised by what he was doing, walking on water and all. When he was next to the table, two chairs formed after the masked man snapped his finger.

Vergeltung sat little Mafdet first, and once every single person present was seated, he spoke, "Quite an interesting tale that I cannot recall. I’ve yet to live for a full year. But still, as of now, good sir, you know my name and my age, yet I know just that you hold a certain something dear. Won’t you partake your name so that we are now even?"

"John…" grumbled the masked man. "Then, are you advancing that we trade knowledge?"

"Maybe? But wasn’t it you, John, who first wanted to resolve things with words?"

"…How did you find me?" muttered John.

"Very well, but you will need to answer something first for me. Like, why are you ordering your kin to attack people. It doesn’t feel like you are after land or riches, right? Would it be poor of me to assume your attack is due to a difference of some kind with the city’ dweller?"

John remained silent for a long time, so long that he had the time to create glass cups, which he filled with a warm liquor – all created from the surroundings. "You drink?"

Vergeltung took the cup that was handed to him and looked deeply into it. "John, haven’t you said your kind do what they do in defense of life or something akin to it… True, death is a part of life – the yesteryear’s tale you presented can only exist as bellow or before it rests innumerable deaths... Are you killing us to flourish great grooves and such?"

"Heaven no. The grooves already are. They are just sick and corrupt. Those that do not die are the blight that sickens all. This city we are to purge, inside reside numerous blights that need to be quel! Existence will vanish without them slain! One after the other, we return life to its normalcy so that a life might even be!"

"John, this seems to quite excite you, but can you avoid talking too loudly? Those ears of mine can hear the quietest whisper with ease but have a hard time with loudness." Said Vergeltung, who took a sip of the warm liquor without fear. John, who had gotten up and planted both his hands on the table while talking, sat back with a troubled expression. "But existence… Would you have guessed this was a subject I got interested in not that long ago. For it to be threaten, if I understood correctly, this is quite troubling. Has there any truth to this claim? I would surely be interested in listening to it."

In truth, Vergeltung didn’t really care about John’s principles or ideas. He just wanted to make him talk as much as possible, and this plan was working remarkably well, as the person he was interrogating was filled with glee at having a small, insignificant cat interested in his spiel. Existence wasn’t something Vergeltung saw in the best light, and neither were those abominations of Change…

The cat wondered while barely listening to John. Did he even exist? The life he thought was real was just a fragmented story written by an old man; so, what reason could prove to him that his current self was even real? Was the concept of existence such a fragile idea that someone could gleam at its state and infer its imminent destruction? What more, Vergeltung thought, if death and destruction are part of life, what of existence itself? Wouldn’t it be natural for it to be destroyed to truly allow life to be… Those kinds of questions were just a small fraction of everything the small detective thought about regularly.

"…..It was my lords who taught me everything," said John, trailing the end of his sentence.

Vergeltung deliberated opening this new can of worms. John had some lords of some kind. All in all, Vergeltung didn’t have a good opinion of John. Not because of what he had done but because of how he was acting. He was simply all over the place and unable to stay on a singular subject. With just a few words, Vergeltung had been able to make John completely forget about trading information… It was just him talking and talking about things that didn’t fully add up. And to be enemies with such a person made the cat shudder.

"Your lords…" started Vergeltung, ready to fish for more.

He didn’t ask anything and only said those two simple words, words that caused major changes in the masked man's appearance. One such change was with this very mask, where both halves expressions became exaggerated. Tears overflowed from one side while the other remained stoic at first glance but hid behind its stiff smile a sort of unexplainable pain… Nay… This was a smile Vergeltung knew all too well, and a pain that could never go away resurfaced in his own expression.

"What were they called?" asked John, catching the detective by surprise.

"I wonder…" responded the cat, fixating on the naked branches overhead. The burning cloud created by Yuu’s explosion was starting to die out, and the impressive smoke covering the sky was about to put everyone under a dark blanket. "Maybe I knew them; maybe I didn’t. There are names haunting my consciousness… But I think they were never meant for my loved ones but only an old fool’s."

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Then," responded John with a lower voice than before. The cat looked back at this man, whom he could barely see in the pressing darkness if it weren’t for his feline eyes. The crying half of the mask had regressed to a small portion. "Aren’t we the same?"

"How so?" The cat raised an eyebrow and felt, to his side, the small Mafdet pulling on his cuff.

"We both lost loved ones, and we both wish to protect life."

Mafdet pulled harder on the cat’s cuff, which Vergeltung immediately understood the meaning of. The detective found out what he didn’t like about John. It was his mask and how it made him unstable. That smiling side, his words were almost poisonous to the dim-witted and an alarm for someone like Vergeltung. He thought and thought to find an adequate response.

"What?" pushed John. "Cat got your tongue? Come and speak with your heart."

Vergeltung grimaced at this arrogant remark. The method John employed to protect life was war. This was something Vergeltung was fully against, yet he couldn’t simply say he didn’t want to protect life, as it would instantly antagonize John.

"Life, existence, reality—they can all vanish just fine." John and Vergeltung both turned to look at the little voice that uttered those words. Mafdet, with piercing eyes that seemed to reach the deepest part of people’s souls, followed with, "If they can vanish, then it’s their natural course. Slaughtering to go against this natural flow isn’t right. Moreso, sir, how old are you? Haven’t you lived your due time? Want me to help you cross to the other side?"

There was a distinct aggressivity in the young child’s voice that surprised Vergeltung. She wasn’t even a year old yet could speak like any other adult, maybe better than some.

"Such a shame," said John, as if waiting for Mafdet's answer. "I did wonder how you managed to find me in this place, but people as intelligent as you are a thorn in our side… If only you could be taught the truth, I’m sure you would have joined us. But alas, you will not be missed."

Vergeltung, now understanding he had been wrong about Mafdet's warning and John’s mask, jumped to the bank before the ground could be robbed from under his feet. He took his weapon, a burning staff, and lit it ablaze. The flame of such rose high in the sky to banish the darkness in an instant. He only now realized how much opening that can of worms was a mistake.

❀

Back inside the village, Tsuki had been pulled into a house that had been repurposed to take care of the wounded. She had fallen dead asleep due to being somewhat betrayed by Sinorous. And in her dream, she found herself somewhere else. A familiar garden that went as far as the eye could see and with as many different flowers as there could ever be. This sight made her shudder, for it was the place where an unknown being would kill her constantly in the guise of training.

She tried to put up a defense instinctively, but her body didn’t respond as she wanted. Her mind was still muddied by the plane of existence she went into, which stretched time to a crawl. Not able to protect herself, she closed her eyes, expecting a sudden wave of pain from a random projectile that would kill her. But like how her body didn’t respond earlier, this attack also never came.

As she opened her eyes, she saw in the corner of them for a brief moment a sort of witch's hat made from long leaves. Whoever was wearing it fled with a soft tap tap tap of their feet.

As she thought she was alone again, an unknown sound came from her right. It was a sound and nothing more, but somehow it came with so much information that directly went into her mind. The sound was a question: "You’re also her daughter, right?"

"What?" Confused, Tsuki tried to turn to her right before seeing the world twist and turn with the sounds of someone running away. It only lasted a moment, but what she saw was a large tree with long strings of fluff mixed with dry leaves. Around it were dying flowers. As for Tsuki herself, she was amidst a sea of red flowers that were encroaching on those similar to themselves. As many colors as there were in the girl’s eyes, they all felt decayed.

"I also had a mother, you know!" Again, the sound that was like a buzzing. Tsuki looked from where it came, and again, tap tap tap… the world shifted. "As you can’t kill me yet, won’t you help me with something?"

"Kill?" asked Tsuki, whose only response was the usual tap tap tap of someone running. Then the world shifted, and she found herself falling from an impossible height. "My brother and I can’t swim. Please, go get him for me."

tap tap tap. A large body of water suddenly appeared below her, which she fell into. She fell deeper and deeper without ever being able to fight against gravity until she couldn’t hold her breath and took in a large amount of water into her lungs. But strangely, the water didn’t impede her breathing. It was more like the concept of breathing wasn’t even a thing. Before she knew it, she reached the bottom of the strange liquid she was in but found nothing of note. Everything was dark, with only a simple stone visible. She picked it up, curious, and tap tap tap, the world changed, and she was out.

Now, she was next to a small puddle of water, so small that it couldn’t have been the one she fell into. Still, the color and how it looked felt so similar… In that moment of thinking, the stone was taken from her, and two sounds followed suit.

"Brother, good morning!" was the intent of one sound, while from the other came an erroneous calculation: "40 minus 6 is 9…" Then another two sounds came. One saying good night to its brother, and the other being the sound of a stone thrown into a puddle.

Tsuki had barely had time to see the figure of the one with the strange hat. All she saw from it was a large tome it was holding in limbs made from brambles.

tap tap tap…

"You helped me, so I must help you in return!" tap tap tap "I don’t have much time left." tap tap tap tap tap "I’ve outlived my time. Your mother, she knew it all along and tried so hard to save me…" tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap "So, you! Everlasting bloom. Come and kill me!"

tap…tap…tap… The world stopped changing, and she finally managed to see who had been talking to her… Someone so nostalgic that she remembered seeing in another strange dream about an orphanage in the middle of nowhere. Way back in the past, when Tsuki, the little knight, had been created… She remembered a young child who talked to her about magic with the brightest smile. She was another orphan like Folkvang who had seemingly been missing.

"Sora?" Tsuki asked before, tap tap tap… The world shifted again, but this time, Tsuki found herself in an unknown building with a few dozen people groaning in pain around her.

"Tsuki!???" Screamed Hoomaikai, who was watching over her. The young sorceress had tears in her eyes as she was worried sick that Tsuki wouldn’t wake up or that if she did, she would be different. She went to hug Tsuki, and as she did, tap tap tap… the world shifted. The two girls were in an unknown place in the wild that had been completely burned down.

"Apophis? APOPHIS!!! Please! Please save Daddy!" suddenly shouted a little girl standing between a masked man and a bleeding cat.

❀✿❀

I… I never realized it back then and only now do. That person, I wonder what happened to them. I wonder if mother managed to save them. As for the one I met, like the one that marred this eulogy’s page early on, called Sora, they were but fragments of what I can only describe as God… At least, that is how I understand it. I hope she’s fine after everything. She called me Everlasting Bloom instead of the usual abomination of Change… I just… I don’t deserve such a name… I hate it. I hate who I was…