The Flesh binds us to mortal limits; the mind deludes us with reasoning; the Self transcends us to miserable beings…

It is that last one that has obfuscated my thoughts recently. After all, without the Self, wouldn’t we be just as similar to a rock by the wayside? The Flesh grows and tires as it changes from the smallest embryo to a large creature. We change so that the one who was just a ball in a mother’s belly can still be called the same being as the one on the mortuary table. It is a curious thing, for me more than anyone else, as I was meant to exemplify an everlasting change. So, where is the limit of change that makes me not me? As with Mafdet and Vergeltung previously, they were still themselves while in the shape that they took. Mafdet, who changed into a weapon in Hoomaikai’s hands, was like two existences that could still be linked to her Self. I did manage to glance at the scepter while fighting the abomination, John, and I never managed to understand what I thought. I said to myself, "This here is the little Mafdet."

Honestly, I think I’m frightened of my future. Here, stuck in something akin to a jail, I see only death waiting for me. Was that the future mother wanted for me?! I’m left to think the only escape is to destroy all three of my Flesh, Mind, and Self in the hope that one of mother’s three rules will bring me back: something that once existed will exist forever. I hate it! I’m scared of truly destroying myself and finding all three parts divided somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine. Imagining another Self other than me with what can be called my Mind disgusts me! What if I truly become nothing more than a rock with my Self slowly decaying to fit this new body?

I don’t know…I feel like I know nothing anymore. I’m even doubting my first analysis of a living thing being divided in three parts. I’m not scared of dying; I’m scared of forgetting everything and not being who I say I am. I just want to scream mother’s name so that she can come save me, but I can’t even do that! Those memories are mine and mine alone! Those I loved, those I hated, those I had no opinion of… I’m scared of dying and forgetting them.

I’ll write and write. So mother, save me. Or anyone, as a matter of fact, be it Maikai or Okikurumi…

❀

Before starting, I must say that I am unable to truly remember and, for this reason, describe what I saw and felt while confronting John. It’s not that I could see, or hear, or smell, or touch, or obviously taste what was present. While none of my usual senses could detect those things, somehow I could. It wasn’t just because of what I was, as Maikai also could sense them… Maybe I am noting this as it makes me question what defines living things. There was a sense, unknown to me before, that existed in an abomination like me and was shared by normal humans like Maikai. It’s a shame it was just us two, but this experience makes me wonder whether everything that exists has predefined rules and abilities that transcend all… Well, it would make sense with some of my later experiences, but it still confuses me more than anything else, as this reasoning wouldn’t allow things without this unknown sense to exist… wait, isn’t that one of mother’s issues with what exists and what doesn’t? She once asked me whether something that could be described existed. I said yes, and she asked me if something that could destroy everything that ever existed actually existed… After this was her lesson on the concept of Burden which allows those impossible things to exist in forms that we might not expect. Then, could those beings just have been under a heavy Burden?

❀

The world was turned black around the two girls. The only light present was that of a luminous vulture flying above their heads. Their opponent had gone completely mad, with his head trying to split in two. On one side the muted mask, and on the other the crying one. It was as if the crying mask was trying to escape the other, as while its tears poured endlessly, a sort of sea started to form.

It was then that Tsuki and Hoomaikai noticed they weren’t in the burned forest of before. The ground was neither hard nor soft and was more like a simple suggestion, which Hoomaikai, or more succinctly, her mount Sinorous, made use of by taking flight. The beast jumped repeatedly into the darkness, landing each time in a sort of invisible puddle. Reportedly, Hoomaikai saw Tsuki as if she was inside a deep sea of clear water, while Tsuki saw Hoomaikai like a bird in the sky.

The owls and crows were still present, but something was taking them out. It was more obvious with the owls flying after the vulture, as they would at times be crushed or maimed by something and fall into an endless void. As for the crows… it was simply too hard to tell them apart from the background, as they seemed to refuse the light coming from the vulture. Lastly, the burning yellow petals. They were slowly bundling up before being pushed away for some odd reason. The tiger was refusing to manifest or couldn’t.

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"Halambusha!" screamed Tsuki, the tiger’s name. She still knew nothing of who he was but understood him better than the other two summons, as she had consumed his very heart with some of his memories. He was a great warrior above all, but his will was bound to his brothers. With the chaos happening in the city, all he wanted to do was to run to them. After all, it was the right thing to do, in his opinion. The enemies had breached their line of defense, leaving the civilians powerless and their lives ready for the taking. Although John seemed powerful and important, in Halambusha’s eyes he was just a more important pawn. Who created the fleshy sword above the city? Also, Halambusha had no idea John had infected the water with a strange power and thus thought John was more like a scout returning with knowledge related to the current attack on the city. To him, it made the most sense, as Vergeltung of all people had been on his tail. Halambusha asked himself why they were wasting time on a singular informant, as there should be more of them already far away. They should instead be securing their base and making plans from there.

"Halambusha!!!!" ordered the tiger’s master once more. "If you must say something, then talk! But right now, this monster has stolen one of our own. We must defeat him, and this isn’t blind rage like you might know. Information! We’ll tear him limbs from limbs if we need to just to learn what those abominations want from us. They attacked us, not for land or riches. If they have a target, let's give it to them and end it all. But if they want blood… let’s swim in it and destroy them!"

This wasn’t what Halambusha wanted to hear. He saw his old self in her words, something she first alluded to with how he once drowned in a blind rage that cost him his life before seemingly falling into this kind of rage herself, even if she tried to hide it. In whose blood were they meant to swim? Wondered the tiger. Surely, it couldn’t be their own allies possibly still dying while they tried to rescue someone already dead! For the first time, Halambusha felt a bit of disgust toward the one he was serving, and this made him think of everything the girl had done since meeting her. He had almost forgotten how she had killed innocent people in the forest of dreams, which was something he waved away as the forest itself was messing with people’s minds.

"I’ve lost my adjutant, who was meant to guide me in those dark times," responded the girl, sensing Halambusha's rising distrust. "I’m young and lacking in many aspects! I want to protect those I love, and I’m thus bound to take up arms to do so. I want him dead presently. If you have anything to say, then do it later! People might be dying as we tarry here!"

Again, he didn’t like what she said. But it was true that the longer they remained here, the more people might die. There was also the fact that they suddenly appeared in this forest. Halambusha hadn’t seen the one helping them like Tsuki did and was in the dark. Begrudgingly, he manifested from the burning petals and found his fur burning bright red from the usual yellow pattern of a tiger. He wondered for a moment if Tsuki had something to do with it before charging toward John. It was as if inside his burning flesh resided the will of Vergeltung...

The crows, the owls, Hoomaikai, and Tsuki, Halambusha glanced at them. There were multiple plans forming in his mind, which made him scowl at his allies. If only he didn’t have this beast form and was more like his past self. His flesh started burning at this thought. It felt as if he was once again running in the villages he would burn down and pillage when he was still alive. He saw so many of his brothers of war die in those places… They were less than on an open battlefield, but there, people were killed like flies, and it was hard to know when someone dear died. Halambusha growled at those dark memories, but instead of a low rumbling coming from a tiger's mouth, there came a dismissive shout from a man he had long not heard. Ha, of course, he thought. He wasn’t really made of flesh anymore, but of petals. What was stopping him from shouting orders like on his old battlefield, other than himself?

A shout that made the voidless expanse of their location tremble came from a rapidly changing tiger. "Hoomaikai!" it said. "Retreat NOW and assist Tsuki!" The words themselves made Hoomaikai tremble. They willed her back like a lasso capturing a raging bull, and she finally looked back before a large tree-sized arrow flew past her. The large arrow clipped the vulture’s wing, and from the hole it formed, the numerous owls managed to fit inside, acting like a sort of poison. Although the vulture managed to heal its wing, it had become lame, causing it to be slowly dragged down.

As for Hoomaikai, her mind had been captured by the demonic head of Halambusha, and she followed his order with a shudder. He reminded her too much of the multi-headed demon the old Tsuki would summon before losing her memories. It was the summon of hers that scared Hoomaikai the most, even if it wasn’t that strong. Instead, it was the fire burning in their eyes that frightened her, and for Halambusha, whom she was seeing for the first time in this form, it wasn’t just his eyes that were set ablaze. He stood tall at about nine meters in height, with red fur like blazing wind and the head of a demonic tiger. In his hands was a rotten bow, with which he had shot a mighty arrow previously.

He was frightful to look at, and Hoomaikai didn’t dare do so. She felt in her hands the scepter quivering in rage, but she ignored it with her head hanging low.

Sinorous managed to make the distance in an instant by repeatedly jumping between planes. In an instant, the sorceress was directly next to John, whom she swung her weapon at. It crashed into something mere centimeters away from her target, and she was pushed back by some kind of afterimage of a bull. Something unseen had protected John, but the sorceress didn’t allow this small setback to slow her down. She attacked again and again, each time clashing with something mysterious until one of John’s heads turned toward her, the muted mask one. It snapped at her like a whip, with multiple rows of sharp teeth rearing to shred her apart. At this point, Tsuki intervened, using her fan first to deviate the attack and then striking at the exposed neck with the sharp black dagger. It pierced… something, but never entered the neck she was aiming for.