After stumbling through the first floor, the duo finally made it to the staircase that led them down to the next layer down. The walk leading up to this wasn't very talkative, and was mostly riddled with feeble attempts from Throne to engage in smalltalk, only for Gale to silently turn him away. As they made their way down the stairs, Gale was getting quite sick of Throne incessantly breathing down his neck with all these annoying questions.
"So, your name used to be GaLi, right?" Throne asked with the same smile as ever, "But everyone started calling you Gale after a while, why is that?"
"Hrm."
"To be fair, it's a stupid name anyways, so it's good you changed it."
"...Throne isn't any better." He groaned.
"It's shortened and dumbed down for convenience, courtesy of Vastoria." Throne recalled painfully, "My full name is The Dethroned."
"Wow, that's somehow a thousand times worse." Gale tried his hardest not to laugh, but a chuckle still cracked through, "Pfft! The Dethroned!? You gotta be kidding me!"
"You laugh at such an impeccable name, but it's the meaning that counts!" Throne got flustered, "I gave myself that name to instill a sense of lost pride! Those who heard the name immediately associate it with a king who's been thrown off the pedestal, a man that's started from zero. In the Living World, I was surely someone great, yet when I arrived in Heaven I had to work my way up!"
"You seem pretty full of yourself, but the truth is—No one knows who they were before they got sent here." Gale mocked him, "What makes you so certain you weren't just a delusional bum on the side of the road, who could only ever dream of grandeur when he himself only begged for enough coins to grab himself some bread for the day?"
"That is absolutely not my life! I... I can feel it in my bones!" Throne got offended all of a sudden, "My skills, my determination, my motivation! Hell, can you not tell from my personality that I was surely destined for greatness from the very start?!"
"...Sheesh." Gale backed off, unnerved, "I can definitely tell one thing—You didn't have many friends, if any at all."
By now, they had reached the start of the second floor. It was described to them prior to this by Vastoria as a trap-riddled death zone, however once they made it down there, it was completely different. Everything was destroyed, as if something huge passed clean through. Any traps that did exist were already activated and thus no longer required them to be wary of. It was a relief, but not by much. They were both careful enough not to completely let their guard down by such an occurrence. Nay, both knew what had transpired here.
"Guess they all made it safely through." Throne smiled.
"We can't know that for sure until we see them. Let's keep our Eyes peeled." Gale replied, "Look out for any more traps that might go off."
"Oh, I will." Throne nodded as he stood suspiciously behind Gale's pace.
"...That includes not pushing me into one as well." He turned around angrily.
"The audacity! I'm just standing behind to make sure nothing comes up from behind us!" Throne was appalled to be labeled a murderer, "It's like you said, we're in this together!"
"Hmm..."
With each step Gale took, Throne was right behind him. Again, from the very beginning, he was always right on his back. No matter what, Gale could only feel like he was about to get stabbed in the back, hit on the head with a rock and now—He might even get pushed into a booby trap. To remedy this, he preemptively tensed up his back to make sure he could spring back in time before he got pushed in the case such a thing happened. In constantly keeping his guard up around Throne, however, Gale failed to keep himself focused on the traps.
"Ah!" Throne pulled him back just in time as a giant saw blade flung itself towards their faces.
"...The hell was that?" Gale looked back at him, still as suspicious as ever.
"What do you mean?" Throne sighed, "I said I'd watch your back, didn't I?"
"You saved my life." Gale added, "To hell with pushing me into it, you could've just let me get sliced in half and there'd be no blood on your hands, so why?"
"Oh my God, is this what it's all about?" Throne shook his head in disappointment, "Gale, why do you wanna reach the bottom of the Shrine?"
At first, he wanted to blurt out something akin to "Isn't that obvious? To help save my friends!", however this didn't happen for whatever reason. He paused to think about his answer, he hesitated, and though he did indeed want to land on that reply after all, he felt it was already too late to answer after such an awkwardly long pause. Throne, however, thought nothing of this. He merely understood Gale's worries as an equal and explained his own reasons for doing what he's doing.
Stolen story; please report.
"You and I are alike, you just don't like looking at the mirror." Throne explained sensibly, "I'm doing this to help keep my friends safe. I'm sure they're doing just fine without me, but somehow I just can't accept not being there for them."
"I...! I get that!" Gale agreed, "I want to trust them, and I don't even think I'd make that much of a difference, but I don't wanna just sit around doing my own thing while they're potentially fighting for their lives."
"So you do get it, after all?" Throne chuckled, "Which is why I can tell you this with confidence."
"Throne?" Gale raised an Eyebrow.
"Gale, I'm doing this purely for my own benefits." Throne revealed, "I consider them my friends, but I also only consider friends to be people you can make use of. You should understand what I mean by this, right? I need them alive if I wanna achieve my goal, so that's why I'm doing what I'm doing."
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"Eh? Sorry, you completely lost me." Gale turned back around to press onward, "I'm not at all like that."
"Looks like you're still a bit too early to see it, but there will come a time." Throne confidently kept walking behind him, "Hey, can I ask you something if you promise to answer truthfully?"
"No promises."
"What's your ulterior motive?" Throne asked, dropping the fake smile in favor of sincerity.
"My... what? I don't have one, unlike you." Gale rolled his Eyes.
"Lying is useless. After going to such lengths as to rip off poor Sab's wings just to get here even a cinch faster, then I know you're not doing this out of the goodness of your heart. You've got things you wish to achieve, dreams you wish to make a reality. I just wanna know what that is, exactly."
"And like I said, I don't have anything like that. I'm here to save my friends, and to do that, I had to make use of Sab somehow." Gale shot back, "Besides, didn't you want to rip off Sab's wings first?"
"Where'd you hear that from?" Throne tilted his head innocently.
"Logical deduction. You wanted to give them to Vastoria." Gale crossed his arms, "It's the only reasonable assumption to make, after all."
"...Heh, not bad! I'll give you 9 points for that one!" Throne clapped for him, "Out of a total 27, that is. You're a third of the way there, but there's something missing."
"What kind of a scale is that?" Gale sighed, "Then, can you tell me what the other two thirds are?"
"What would be the point, then? Come on, not like we have anything better to do while we're trudging along through these blasted ruins." Throne winked.
He was being annoying, basically. Making Gale use his brain whilst it's already strained enough from the stressful situation they were in was bad enough, but he had to even be an ass about it on top of that. Throne wasn't actively nor blatantly trying to killing him, but he certainly wasn't helping Gale pass the second floor any faster. Somehow, Gale got the impression that the only way to get this guy to shut up was to guess all three answers correctly.
"You wanted her to continue the investigation of the Shrine."
"Wrong, no points for that one." Throne stuck his tongue out as he made a loud buzzer noise.
"...You didn't want Sab to pose a threat in the future." He assumed.
"Ooh, nice! That's another 4.5 points!" Throne smiled.
"Eh?! Only half of that answer was correct? Come on!" Gale rolled his Eyes, "...You also didn't want to work with an annoying guy like him..."
"Bingo." Throne smiled wryly, "So close, so close! Come on, Galey, just one more!"
"Don't call me that." Gale furrowed his brows, "The third one... Well, then it's gotta be..."
"I wanna revive." Throne said the answer for him, "Hm? Why are you so surprised by this? It's the only logical conclusion to make, after all."
Though Gale was indeed shocked to hear this, it wasn't because he didn't expect that answer, but because he didn't expect Throne to say it for him. If Gale had guessed it himself, he would have been the one in charge of the conversation from then on. He would be the one holding the word, and thus he could estimate what Throne thought of such a goal. What he knew of that possibility, if he knew the Gods have contracted Gale with a promise to fulfill that very goal, among other things. But that didn't happen, it couldn't have, because Throne was the one who cut in at the very last moment.
"I wanna find a way to revive, and I think this Shrine is the key to that." Throne explained, "There, now you know my ulterior motive. I do want to make sure they're safe, but if we ever run into a way to resurrect, don't expect me to wait around for someone else to seize it."
"...You won't find anything like that here." Gale looked down, "This whole place, everything inside it... It's a mistake left over from the Gods."
"Eh?" Throne couldn't believe it, "Ha-ha, what are you...?"
"I visited their Abode, they said so themselves."
"And you're just gonna trust them!?" Throne was angered by this complacent attitude of his.
He rushed to grab Gale's shoulder from behind and whip him around. What kind of a face was Gale making at him, he wondered. Was he saying this to rile him up, to plant seeds of doubt in his mind? He didn't seem like the pessimistic type in Throne's mind, which is exactly why he was so stunned to see the angel before him look so sullen and guilty.
"What else can I do but take their word?" Gale looked him in the Eyes, "It's my only chance to revive myself."
"R-Revive? Oi, wait...!" Throne saw him run into the dark hallway.
"It's as you said." Gale's voice echoed out, "You and I are much alike... I just don't wanna accept that ugly mug staring back at me in the mirror."
In his rush, Throne had failed to see a dart trap still somehow active in the walls. The moment he hit the tripwire, the dart zoomed to him, hitting him straight through the shoulder. It was laced with a deadly acid, one that quickly spread down his entire arm until it became completely black. His screams echoed into the darkness, cursing Gale for this... However, no one answered his cries for help.
Gale was now the cause of two of his friends' peril, but he pressed on regardless. It pained him, but he knew that turning around now would only erase all his progress thus far. He had to shoulder that guilt by himself in order to live as a human, for no human is without sin.