Grabbing her purse and walking away from the crowd; still cheering for Dias, Tira followed Hannah as they easily snuck away from the party and left the life of the night into the darker and quieter streets.

It took only a couple of blocks before the sound of the music faded away, the cheers began to fade and the lights started to slowly dim, the street now only illuminated by the single moon in the sky.

"Ah~ That feels much better!"

Hannah groaned as she took off her heeled shoes and changed into flat sneakers, a bit floppy because they weren't exactly her size, but still usable enough to walk with. "Are you sure this is okay? Your heels are higher than mine…" Hannah asked with worry.

Tira held up the hem of her dress to show that she had been barefoot for a long time now, directly walking on the cold asphalt and wriggling her toes to further emphasize. "I’ll manage."

For the first time in a long time, Hannah was right in her reasoning. Touching flat ground had never felt more satisfying after the torture that her feet had gone through with the heels. It felt as though she was truly walking on clouds by comparison.

They walked at a comfortable pace, side by side as Hannah kept talking about the wedding with the most animated expressions and hand gestures to accompany her story-telling. "It’s just... It’s so memorable to be the first wedding held at the end of the world. The event just kind of means a lot to them, but to us too, you know?"

"I know." There was no way that the significance of something so big, so celebrated by the remaining bastion of this part of the city, would remain unknown to those that attended. "I’m.. glad that it went off without a hitch."

"Same." Her friend sighed and smiled dreamily. "I'm glad that those two get to have their happiest day."

As she was tired, perhaps even exhausted from all the dancing, Hannah didn't chat as much as she usually did.

They continued the walk in quiet company, mostly filled with the music of the cicadas and the light of the unusually bright moon. It accompanied their path through the dark. It was a serene mood, quite rare to encounter nowadays, but a welcome change nevertheless from the hectic and buzzing atmosphere of the party they had just left.

Quiet. Calm. The perfect atmosphere for a confession.

"Hannah."

"Hm?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"That was already a question!" Hannah giggled, hopping over the speed bump with a little skip and jump.

Smiling brightly, Tira thinks that her glowing figure almost overshadowed the beauty of the moon, as soft rays of celestial light land on her cheeks; gave her an ethereal glow. The glittering of her dress matched that of the stars above, and her smile was the happiest that Tira had ever seen on her in a very long time.

It was truly and honestly, a happy smile.

Then, turning that smile onto her with curious, attentive eyes, Hannah asked with a little lilt in her voice. "So?"

"Who are you?"

She had wanted to ask that for the longest time but never found the time to. Not until now, when the opportunity had finally come, perhaps created by the brunette herself, to voice what had been on her mind for much too long of a time.

Hannah looked confused, then giggled, but her brows were still knotted up in disbelief. "Tira, what are you talking about? I’m Hannah!"

"Yes, you are." She didn't deny the girl’s name, what she had called herself. "But I don’t know anything else about you."

"Aw, you shouldn’t have worded it so ambiguously! I got confused!" Hannah pouted, but not for long. She continued her silly march forward. "You’re going to have to be more specific."

Very well, specific as can be then. "Did all demigods live amongst humans before the apocalypse? Or is it just a you thing?"

Hannah's smile froze on her face for but a moment, forming a picturesque scene that would send anyone who saw it wild with abandon. It was this smile that had her crowned the Queen Bee of the Year, beating even Ayunda, Choir Diva and Chia, the leader of the Metrolight Girls. It was this smile that had stolen the hearts of every boy at school. The very same smile that she threw onto a boy name Elvin as he asked her out on a date, a few months into their study year.

It was also this smile that she had worn when she offered her friendship to her deskmate by chance like a lottery game.

The girl giggled, then laughed, the intensity ramping up as she twirled back to face Tira with a childish smile. Her light brown eyes glowed under the moonlight, to that of a beautiful golden with a blue ring surrounding the iris.

"Oh, my, Tira, you’re so funny!"

"I wasn’t trying to be funny, but thank you."

In a split second, her smile, which had always been warm, had turned cold and chilling, mirroring the night.

Bathed under the silver ray of the moon, her glowing eyes and hair served as the proof of her beauty as one of those that belonged with the ethereal.

Her aura was calm, yet chaotic at the same time; a walking contradiction as nothing about her made sense in human logic but fit in so perfectly to a being not of its order.

Sometimes, the simplest conjecture was almost always the correct answer.

"What gave it away?" She asked.

"When you woke me up on the second day." Tira did not feel nervous talking to her, even as the brunette’s demeanor had not changed from what she knew of her from when they were table-mates of the last school year. "-every girl from our class was asleep in the same classroom we attended, and there were twelve of us. The number of the sleeping bag I spotted in the morning while talking to you was eleven."

"And none were empty."

Hannah’s eyes widened, though her surprise didn't last long as the girl chuckled and continued walking. "Ha! I see, I forgot to claim an extra bag before coming in? What if I was spending all night being awake with Felis?"

"Then she wouldn’t have been surprised to see you again, especially if you had told her about getting a shower in the morning."

Tira followed with the same pace she was using before, though no longer matching Hanna’s strides as she was almost floating with each step she took. "And she would have prepared your toiletries with your name embroidered on them. Felicia is that kind of person."

"She is?"

"She is."

The shimmering blue was approaching closer and closer as they got to the edge of the barrier. Hannah hadn't stopped moving, though she also didn't make another attempt at conversation until they were close enough to the edge that the blue had nearly turned opaque.

"What do you think of this war?"

"It’s pretty meaningless, as all wars are," Tira answered honestly, almost brutally so. No point in sugarcoating the bad things since it wouldn't turn it good. "There are better ways to prove a point."

"But none as effective as violence."

Hannah sighed, her golden eyes landed unwillingly on the membrane, before she directed them to Tira.

"I don’t think Dias will tell you about how our bonds work with our mortal companions, so I’ll tell you in his stead."

"He should have told you the thing about our compatibility correlating to the amount of power we got to bestow on our partners in battle.

"It was our power, which means, there is always the risk that if we become too similar to one another, it will become confused. At that point, there would be no difference between the demigod and the mortal."

She paused, throwing her longing gaze back to the full moon. "And at that point, if the demigods aren't careful– your power could be taken away completely by your companion, stripped down to the root of your domain."

Somber was her mood and regretful was the smile on her face as she shook her head lightly before she dispelled that momentary emotion, shown through a crack on her mask. She turned around to face her current company again properly.

Their eyes were now on the same level, as the demigod was floating to match Tira's height to address her face-to-face.

"If you wish for freedom, I can break that bond without having to resort to death. I have enough to grant at least one last boon."

Tira studied Hannah's youthful face that peered down at her, floating with featherlight weight, as if the wind could pick up all of sudden and whisk the demi-god away in a blink.

Hannah’s eyes were serious and genuine, and that what was reflected from her golden lenses; emotions that Tira wished to see.

Tira’s sighed in turn. "One last boon, is that it?"

Sadness marred Hannah's sincere face in an instant, her lithe fingers tracing Tira’s temple down to her cheek. She cupped her jaw with a nostalgic, longing look. "It’s such a shame that such a good person like you is wasted away now. I’ve eyed you for a long, long time, only to see you willingly leap into the arms of that maniac. I bet he hasn’t told you about our deal–"

As cold fingers thumbed over her lips, she took the chance to bite as hard as she could, drawing blood almost instantly, breaking the skin easier than she did with orange peels.

Hannah’s expression didn't twist in the slightest bit in pain, unlike hers, whose skin was burning internally as her own mind punished her for not leaning away from the touch.

And it wasn't like she could. Tira could not risk the wrath of a demigod all by herself, basing her knowledge of the fickleness of the girl she known named Hannah and the high possibility that it was taken from her main trait and morphed into a mask that would fit the current situation.

She wasn't about to test whether kindness was also just a character setting that the woman made up, or whethee her real personality had been acting through with her own body.

"You don't have any level of trust in your companion, hm?"

Hannah kept smiling as she kept her hand in between her teeth. She had let blood flow down over her chin and dribble down to her dress and onto the road, gravity becoming its partner in a collaborative effort to paint the horror and surrealism.

"This might be problematic if that human-loving demigod of yours ever found out." The demigod winked as she taunted.

"Even if it will be, that problem will remain between Dias and I alone." Tira answered carefully, so she wouldn’t swallow the blood, no matter how dry her mouth was feeling at the moment, it could be dangerous.

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Do not flinch. Do not show weakness. Negotiation was a game of wit and it was happening now, and Tira needed all the composure she could muster to ensure she escaped from this situation alive. "And you still owe me a favor for that shopping trip."

Hannah hummed softly in reply.

"You look stunning in red."

Unwillingness was as clear as the sky since Hannah’s smile didn't reach her eyes, though she complied nonetheless after one last spread of the red on with the pad of her bleeding thumb, as if smearing her mark would taint Tira's soul and not just her lips.

"I’m still a bit disappointed that you didn't pick the other dress, but I guess it doesn’t matter now, does it?" Hannah pouted in displeasure, though her tone and body language were playful, confusing one's senses; a bombardment of mixed signals.

Quietly, Tira waited. She didn't utter a word until the woman before her caved in.

And cave in she did. The demigod schooled her face into a somewhat of neutral expression as she floated closer to the edge of the barrier.

Cold, uncaring, indifferent. The true show of power came from someone who had originally been born in a position above the mass under her feet.

Perhaps that was why they had claimed the title of a demigod for themselves. An almost god. Nearly the epitome of the word power. But not quite there yet.

"What do you wish to know?"

So many questions, so many things that Tira could ask, but all she had was one chance.

One chance. One truth of the truth amongst many lies. Tira felt an unfamiliar surge of power that assured her this contract would be upheld.

Strangely enough, she decided to still put in her trust.

"Would they still count as mortals?"

Tira asked, it was the number one priority case at the moment and elaborated in case it would garner her another ambiguous answer. "Take Purnama as an example. He absorbed the majority of your power, but can he still be killed?"

"Yes."

No hesitation as Hannah answered, almost sounding eager, almost as if this was the question she had to answer among the infinite possibilities that Tira could have gone with.

"You cannot participate in the war, or in other words, exist on earth if you’re not mortal. We demigods have to find our mortal companion and share a portion of our divinity specifically for that reason. That was the penalty and the admission ticket for taking part in this game. You cannot join if you are immortal, but you can't go back up if you were originally mortal."

"I see."

That tracked perfectly with what Tira had hypothesized since the beginning, but having another confirmation only solidified her thoughts on the matter. "Thank you for your answer."

Hannah slowly drifted out, reaching out her hand to the barrier, passing through without as much of a ripple — although she looked back one last time with a rather unexpected question. "Have you ever considered me your friend? Even from before?"

Lonely, longing, defeated. The unholy trinity of a cacophony that had never before been uttered by the long-haired girl that Tira knew of.

Not even when she was dissuaded from befriending the class freak, not when she was chasing someone who wasn't interested in her, not when she had had her heart broken.

Hannah, that was who she was known as, she wasn't the type of girl to take an obstacle lying down.

"It was foolish of me to admit, even if it might have been one-sided," Tira answered honestly, pushing through the slight headache blooming in her temples.

There should be nothing more to hide after tonight, as it would be the last they could talk amicably. "But I do think of you as a friend."

"Ha!"

Hannah scoffed in disbelief, then giggled, her shoulders shaking as she walked out of the barrier at last while waving.

"Thank you for that last laugh, Tira. See you next south."

In a blink, Hannah’s figure disappeared. As if she had never existed in the first place.

As if the wind had whisked her away. Such was the fragility of a demigod's aura that never belonged in the world.

Nothing else felt clear on her walk back to the school. Her feet had brought her there on instinct, drowning away the pain erupting within her body by subduing her mind with the echoing thoughts of what had just transpired; betrayal upon betrayal built on top of lies.

Then, she hurled out the blood and all the food that had barely been digested, the pulp of it almost looked like writhing maggots on the ground. Repulsive, disgusting, unworthy experience to be processed.

How much more should she give away before that insatiable monster called fate would be satisfied?

The war room was filled with laughter and joy, no doubt coming from the people who now had earned the trust of their host, chatting away merrily, as if they hadn't just spent an entire day running around from one end of the block to another.

A little bit of that joyful laughter escaped through the frame, as the door hadn't been foamed yet, the wood still an acoustic material that transfered vibration and amplified the sounds in the room.

Her hand had turned the knob by itself when she found herself aware again, garnering rather casual attention from everyone in the room that morphed once they took a closer look.

What were eyes of shock turned to concern, they were all eagle-eyed and they must have soon noticed the fishy and putrid scent of blood on her lips. And the tremor that wrecked her entire body that the hair could no longer cover.

Dias had made his way in front of her, hand reaching out, about to inspect her closer.

But she stopped him.

Just with a hand in front of his chest, a millimeter away from touching. She stopped his approach by backing away.

"Dias, what did the deal entail?"

Dias' lips turned from a half smile into a thin line. So some kind of deal did happen, then.

"I–"

"Answer me."

She didn't raise her voice. She only repeated her demand through her gritted teeth, compartmentalizing the headache as if it wasn't there pounding behind her eyes trying to claw out through every single orifice in blood.

"Dias, what agreement did you make with her?"

Dias helplessly opened and closed his mouth, speechless. She could sense hesitation and unwillingness in his eyes as he no longer looked directly into her own eyes like usual.

And, unlike the usual, she waited until he finally caved in and spoke with a painful grimace.

"There were two points. One, that we are to know the location of each other’s base, and the second, to not touch each other’s mortal companion."

He clenched his fist as he finally returned his gaze to her, at her lips, slowly as his aura morphed into anger. "Which was obviously violated as she had laid her hand on you. Let me—"

"And her base is located at...?"

"In the south, why are you asking?"

Someone gasped aloud, the first to realize that among many, but she wasn't going to let their unfortunate audience interrupt with their sympathy. This conversation wasn’t about them.

"Shut up or leave."

The seniors shut up their mouths with a click. Good.

"Dias."

Growled she did, as her hands brushed her bangs away so that she could get a clear look at the bastard’s face when he tried to weasel his way out of this. "Dias, do you not understand this yet?"

"I don’t!"

"Dias, you can’t just make a backroom deal regarding my well-being without telling me about it."

She explained, god, she tried to explain. Dias, Dias, Dias. She couldn’t stop repeating his name like a mantra, like a curse. "Dias, I broke your agreement without knowing it, and now, we’ve made an enemy of a madman."

"You didn’t! You weren’t going to kill him–"

"And how would you know?"

She asked back, confronting him with the ugliest side of herself, letting the monster slowly make its way out of the cage and lean against its restraints. "How would you know? I could have planted my blade into that guy’s head; it was so easy!"

"You wouldn’t! I know you, you’re not going to!"

He denied her truth. Dias desperately tried to turn a blind eye. Despite her admission, despite all the evidence pointing the other way, he still tried to lie to himself.

Going as far as to look away from her again. That was twice through this entire evening. She didn't know beforehand that his trust in her was to this extent.

"I just… you promised. You made me promise I…" Dias frowned harder as thoughts flashed across his eyes, but eventually led to nowhere "I don’t understand."

A sigh of disappointment escaped her lips. She had made sure to deliver it as clearly as she could, and she knew he understood. But instead, he was still choosing to live in denial and stay there.

She needed to break through his delusion to move forward.

Even if it hurt her along in the process.

And truly, it hurt. It hurt her so much that she nearly clutched her hair in a bid of tearing it out from the pain that had blossomed inside of her. It pained through their bond, as if it knew what she was about to do; it would hurt him the most then punish her with the tangle of vines that constricted her lungs.

She ignored it, ignored his look of shock and regret, and ignored the words coming from his flapping lips.

Ignore it. She couldn't let him escape further with excuses.

Softly, lighter than air, she drowned away in her mind and choked as the molten pool of guilt guilt guilt filled her lungs with gas and liquid that made her take each breath in water—further pulling her deeper into the recesses of the darkest part of her mind.

And then she heard it. It begged, the monster had begged, to be put out of its misery.

"You treated me like a weapon, yet you left me to collect dust." She whispered. Not to soften the blow, but because she only had that amount of energy to talk while keeping herself at bay.

"You told me to sharpen my edges, yet the whetstone you gave me was dulled with emotions and bias. One way, then back the other. You kept flipping between the two and kept yourself blinded to what you really wanted and I…"

"And you nearly snapped me in the process."

It dawned then. Dias finally undertstood as she uttered it in his language, in that metaphorical nonsense he loved so much, in a way that she was about to make him hate too.

Her flaws, her regret, her decision; she reflected everything he didn't want to see in her as their gazes met once more.

And as time and her patience finally ran out, she gave him a choice to make.

"Dias, you need to choose how you will have me: as your companion, or your blade; because you can’t have both—ask me to be both and I’ll break in your grasp."

Silence settled in the room as nobody moved, suffocated by the tension and power that whirled in and choked them all. Robbed them of air from their lungs, constricting the sacs so that no more than short gasps are possible.

The demi-god finally let out a breath. His eyes dimmed, defeated and in despair. His shoulder slumped from the weight that was now visible to her, dragging him down to earth. To ground him in reality.

"How am I supposed to choose?" He asked one last time.

"What do you think you deserve?"

He inhaled sharply, not ready. Nobody was ever born ready to choose how their lives would go. But everyone had to grow by making decisions.

So she waited.

She waited through it all, even as the flower of pain and regret dug its thorn over her heart and drinks her blood. She waited through the slowing beats of her heart and her shortening impatience. Waited, until he finally decided for that she had waited enough.

"I’m sorry that I have disappointed you. I promise, with all my heart, that this will not happen again." Dias apologized, though his tone was firm, to show that his decision was already made.

"Thank you, for your advice. I will no longer take it for granted ever again."

As soon as the words tumbled out of his lips, into her ears, and filtered into her brain–she let the weight on her ankle pull her in. Grabbed the beast by its fingers, sinking together, as all emotions were put one by one in a secure compartment in her mind and locked away, not to be fiddled with.

What was left was the cold and calculating, a remnant of the shade.

The pressure lifted. There was no one to maintain it anymore. No cause left to fight against.

Her eyes saw everything in a new light.

"We’re going to put aside that you had a collaboration with another demigod and did not tell us."

Gunawan, for once, was the one who spoke first and broke the tension once he thought it was safe to finally butt in. "Where is the base of the other party, exactly?"

"South," the demigod answered, pointing at the map table where they gathered mere moments ago. "She took the biggest touchstone in the south of this city, while I took the one in the central. That was the agreement that we had."

Rina gasped. Her face paled further as her expression morphed into one of horror, throwing her gaze onto Tira with great sadness and hesitancy before forcefully pulling it away to address the demigod with a bit of a stutter. "A-Are you sure it was in the south? Did she not lie to you?"

A shake of the head came back as the answer. "We made sure to check each other’s domain after we claimed it. I could tell you with absolute certainty that the domain of my... former ally was located in the south."

She watched, still and unmoving, as the three high school seniors shared a glance with each other, the horror now spreading across them and them only as Donny had sported a deep frown, while Armand, in an unlikely fashion, blanched red in anger.

"Hah! I see, it's in the south... I see..."

Armand then tried to move past the group to grab the demigod, but she easily stopped him, simply by putting her left hand in between the two.

"Move." The blond boy growled.

She did not respond.

"MOVE!"

She took the incoming arm and twisted it, throwing the burly high schooler back on the floor onto his back with just the tip of her fingers.

The impact was harsh, as the spine had popped upon the thud of him landing flat under her feet. But it did not kill his fighting spirit. "You’re out of your fucking mind!"

"It matters not that they have him."

She explained to the enraged boy, the voice that came flowing out of her throat sounded far away and cold. "There are three outcomes that man could face. Either he died on the first day, or he survived and is on the run right now,

"–and the last outcome, he survived and was captured immediately on sight."

A pause. Time given to let her words break through the anger and sink into the minds of those listening to them.

"Now, if he were to have escaped out in time and survived in the wild until the grace period happened, he would have reached this place two days ago at the latest."

She let go of the hand in her grasp, no longer burning from prolonged contact, and ripped the gloves off her digits with her teeth to use the fabric to wipe away the remaining taint on her lips.

"Thus, it led me to believe that he most likely died or was in the custody of the enemy. Both meant absolutely nothing to me at the moment, as his survival shouldn't impact any further progress and planning that our side has achieved."

"This is your father we’re talking about!" Armand stood up with a painful groan, angry but also confused. "Right?!"

She took a good look at him, computing from past data that he needed a less intricate explanation and something that spoke to the heart to be convinced to back off. "The value of a hostage depends on what his value was to the redeeming party."

Another pause, another moment for Armand to digest her explanation. "The more I act as if I put importance on his well-being, the more likely he will be kept alive longer to put pressure on me."

"Thus, I need to act properly to keep the book in balance. Too desperate, and the enemy will squeeze me dry. Too indifferent, and they will toss the worthless hostage away without a second thought. Is my reasoning understandable?"

With that, she concluded the hearing, assured that her logic had come across as simple as it could be, convincing the senior in tandem with making her stance clear on the matter.

Rina had put down her hands, her eyes shaking with a barrage of emotions, but most prominent of all, concern and worry. Aimed at her. "Tira?"

She directed her eyes onto the senior properly, awaiting her question that soon should follow after. "Are you… okay?"

"I am functioning according to the directive given to me."

She made her reply as succinct and digestible as possible.

"I will inform you should I be experiencing any hindrance or malfunction pertaining to my orders, but as of right now, I am one hundred percent fully functional."

She looked over to her lord at the moment, wondering what had caused his eyes to look so pained as he gazed upon her.

She had behaved exactly as expected, or was her behavior not yet up to par? "Have I done something to displease you, Sir?"

He almost choked on air from shock. She should refrain from asking questions from now on.

"Nothing, it’s nothing." He told her. Hiding away the pain with a smile, as he always did. "May I know who I am dealing with right now?"

Ah, right, she had forgotten to introduce herself. Tira had sunk so deeply that this matter must have escaped her mind when she was sorting through and shutting down her emotional wires.

"I apologize for my late introduction, sir."

She kneeled, her head hung low, eyes closed, as a show of absolute faith and loyalty to her new master. What name should she present to him that would bring pride and competence in her ability?

What type of name-

Oh, she found one in her memory. Although it was buried so deeply that cobwebs had covered it, the scent of metal and screams of the music still echoed clearly.

It was abominable. It sounded repulsive and it was painted with a viscous, bloody history behind it.

It was perfect.

"The Butcher of the South, at your service."

And she let herself smile for the first time as her emotions withered. All of it acompanied by the bell that heralded the bladed agent of something worse than death.