“Sacha…”
Orochalcus muttered, with pure malice in his tone, feeling pure wrath boiling inside of him. There he was, Sacha, the man responsible for all of this, the man who had done everything to him, to everyone else, standing right there, above him, looking down at him as though he were some insect.
”Who the fuck do you think you are to call me Orochi!?”
Orochi, that was a name Orochalcus couldn’t stand anymore, it was what Sacha always called him, back in the old days, before everything went so, horribly wrong. It was what everyone he was close to had used to call him, it was once something of comfort to him, nothing but a nickname, something his friends would call him, but now, he hated it, because it reminded him of Sacha. Now, that name was nothing more than part of his memory of Sacha, no matter what happened, he couldn’t separate the two things from his mind.
”Ah, but of course, you go by ‘Helheim slayer’ now, do you not, Orochi? A moronic title, by the way, you should really stick to what you used to go by.”
Sacha smirked wildly as he stared down at Orochalcus, his pale face showing a look of utter superiority. He had a faint French accent, something Orochalcus had grown to hate by now, all because of him. Orochalcus wanted to jump up there, to shoot at him, to behead him and end everything, but he couldn’t, his body wouldn’t move.
”And I suppose ‘Divine regent of heaven’ is better then, ey, you piece of shit!?”
Orochalcus screamed back at him, barely containing the pure hatred he had for Sacha. This man, after all he’d done, to him, to his friends, to the people they both considered as family, how could he consider himself some sort of servant of god? There was nothing divine about him, nothing in the slightest, he was evil, pure, unhinged evil, worse than the amalgamates, he was Lucifer himself, no, he was worse than the devil, he was the very epitome of scum, a man who would sacrifice everything for nothing, truly, to Orochalcus, he was cruelty incarnate.
”The difference between our names, Orochi, is that mine is accurate, can you not understand such a simple concept?”
Sacha’s presence was utterly overwhelming, even though he was standing so far above Orochalcus, he felt like he was actively encircling him, pushing down on him from all sides. He felt small, as if he were looking up at some God smiting him, but Sacha was no god, at the end of the day, he was human, and so he could be killed, something Orochalcus would do, no matter the cost.
”Oh, go shove that heaven shit up your ass, Sacha!”
Orochalcus screamed back, staring straight up at Sacha with an expression of pure hatred, as though there was nothing in his mind but wrath for the man above him.
”Why don’t you get off your damned high horse and kill me, huh!? Are ya too scared to meet whatever fucking god you worship!?”
Sacha stared down at him, removing the hilt of a sword from his hip, yet there seemed to be no blade attached to it, as he aimed where a blade would be down at Orochalcus.
”I cannot afford to dirty my utterly pure soul.”
Sacha responded, no hint of emotion in his voice, only a cold, calculated sound, as if he was merely stating the obvious. His smirk was near completely gone, as he stared at Orochalcus’s eyes with a look which amounted almost to disgust.
”Pure!? Are you shitting me!?”
Orochalcus replied in his same, wrathful scream, how could Sacha call himself pure, after all that he had done?
”You killed everyone! You took everything from me, from us! All so that you could have power! You raped me!”
That last bit of Orochalcus’s yell seemed to trigger something within Sacha, as he suddenly leaped down, landing straight on his feet, seeming completely unaffected by the immense fall he had just willingly endured. His height was still, even on the ground, far greater that Orochalcus’s, as he stared down at Orochalcus, with a manic expression on his eyes.
”Silence.”
Orochalcus felt himself unable to speak, as if some invisible force was covering his mouth, was this Sacha’s doing? Was he genuinely able to affect him like this? There was clearly something here Orochalcus didn’t know about, something that Sacha was already actively using to enforce his will on Orochalcus? Was he weaker? No, it couldn’t be, surely, after all Orochalcus had endured, he had to be strong enough to defeat Sacha, to take his revenge. Before Orochalcus could finish his train of thought, he was interrupted but Sacha’s quick continuation.
”On that day in November, Sacha died. He deserved to, Sacha was a sinner, he was flawed, incapable of fulfilling the will of our great lord above. That is why I was created, I am Sacha without his flaws, I am now Sa’an, a perfect, pure being, who will bring the wrath of god down on this diseased land.”
Still, Orochalcus couldn’t respond, even as an even more uncontrollable rage grew and boiled inside of him, he couldn’t move himself, all he could do was look on, and listen to Sacha’s delusional ravings. Sacha still seemed so far off, yet so actively around him, a feeling that terrified Orochalcus, like very little else ever had. He had spent so long trying to fight Sacha, and take revenge for everyone he had wronged, but now, right when he was directly in front of him, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t swing his sword, fire his crossbow, nothing, giving him a horrible, sinking feeling.
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”…And yet, in spite of all I have sacrificed, you choose to act as though I am some sort of monster? Have you no understanding of this world, Orochalcus?”
Sacha’s expression calmed slightly, and he let out a deep breath, looking away from Orochalcus for some seconds, seemingly contemplating something, before he looked back at Orochalcus. As he did, Orochalcus felt that overwhelming sensation of Sacha’s mere presence loosen ever so slightly, so that he could respond to what Sacha was about to say.
”Do we not share the same goal, Orochalcus? To remove the sin amalgamates from this world? Why is it that you still hold this Thanatos towards me?”
Orochalcus’s response did not share Sacha’s calm tone, it was just as rageful as it was earlier.
”Because you want to kill people, Sacha!”
Orochalcus screamed back at him.
”You don’t want to just protect people from the sin amalgamates, you want to destroy anyone who might become one! Is that what you want!? To slaughter the ninety nine percent so that the one percent could have a chance!?”
Sacha looked back at him, that same, cold, utterly neutral expression covering his face as he responded in his equally cold tone.
”The Purging of degeneracy from earth is a necessary step in the quest for a brighter future for those who deserve it, Orochalcus.”
Sacha aimed the handle of the blade back at Orochalcus. Now that he was up close, he could see that there was, in fact, a blade, but one so obnoxiously thin it could barely be seen, hardly much thicker than a grain of sand. Was Sacha mocking him? With such a thin blade, it was a surprise it had not already shattered, but were he to fight Sacha, it would just break the instant Orochalcus’s immense blade so much as touched it. Was there something that Orochalcus was missing? Something he didn’t know that Sacha did?
”You and I, we are one and the same. Just as I discarded my past, so too can you.”
Sacha continued to look down at him, his face softening ever so slightly, almost resembling how it once was. That friendly, jokey smile he once had, the image crossed through Orochalcus’s mind. Sometimes, it was difficult to believe these two were the same people, how could someone who used to be so virtuous become so utterly horrible? But they were, he had, Orochalcus had to remember that, no matter what. Sacha was his enemy now, no matter how he may once have been, that part was just as he said, gone, dead, leaving nothing but the evil that had truly always been inside of him.
”Kill yourself, Orochi.”
Sacha spoke, in a tone that was almost warm, and kind, juxtaposing immensely with what he was actually saying.
”Let the sins of your past be absorbed by that blade you carry, my very own blade.”
Orochalcus stared up at him, his manic expression creeping back onto his face, his eyes widening in pure rage. Who was he to talk about sin? About redemption? The only monster here was him, how could he not see that? Was he even human anymore? Before Orochalcus could even respond, Sacha continued on.
”But until the day you accept reality, I’m afraid that you are of no use to me, to the path of glory, in the slightest, for now, I’d suggest you leave, I have heretics to purge.”
Orochalcus felt his rage reach a tipping point, was he seriously just going to disregard him like this? Ignore everything he did like it had never even happened? How could one man just ignore him like this? Orochalcus had to fight, he had to kill Sacha, right here, right now. Embed his sword straight into his skull, turn his body into a sponge of flesh and blood, but he couldn’t even move. Was it really that Sacha’s presence was so utterly overwhelming it entered the realm of physicality? Could something so abstract have a genuine impact on this world? Orochalcus didn’t know, but he didn’t care, it didn’t matter if there was something in the way, he would just tear his way through it, and slaughter Sacha, take revenge for all that had been done to him.
”SACHA!”
Orochalcus suddenly burst through Sacha’s non-existent, yet so very real grip on him, the tip of his blade scraping slightly against the ground as he pulled it into the air, holding it well above his head, readying to slam it down into Sacha’s skull. He dashed towards him, crossing the distance between them that, though it may have been no more than a dozen feet, felt like a thousand miles, and brung the sword down over the top of him.
But before he could feel the satisfaction of so much as striking a hair on Sacha’s head, he felt himself interrupted by an unbreakable guard. Staring down at the end of his blade, he saw what he had just assumed to be impossible, Sacha blocking his immense blade with his sword that was thinner than string. But how? Sacha didn’t even seem to be putting in any effort, hell, he was using his left hand, when he had always been right handed. Was he mocking Orochalcus? Making fun of his inability to defeat him? It couldn’t be, no, it simply couldn’t, after all that he had been through, he couldn’t even fight Sacha, let alone kill him, it simply wasn’t possible, it wasn’t right, yet it was, right there before him, clearer than day.
”…Wonderful…”
Sacha said, that same manic expression rising on his own face as he stared at Orochalcus, a cruel, massive grin plastering his pale face.
”This is precisely what I expected from you, Orochi! Swinging that sword of yours like a wild animal! Overcoming even reason! This is why I need people like you to understand the truth of this world!”
Sacha suddenly swung his own blade, which, despite it’s sheer thinness, threw Orochalcus’s sword away with immense force, as the heavy metal slab smashed into the road behind Orochalcus, the angle it forced his arms into being unimaginably unpleasant, but Orochalcus still didn’t break his grip on the blade, and clutched it, swiftly trying to pull it back out and swing it back at Sacha, who was still ranting like a madman, once again aiming his sword at Orochalcus.
”You won’t even part with your blade after a strike like that! Remarkable!”
Orochalcus finally freed his sword from the stone ground after a few seconds of trying, a short while which felt like an eternity to Orochalcus, though. He wasted no time in swinging it over his head, trying to shove it back down onto Sacha, only to be interrupted by a sharp, immense pain in his forehead. Glancing up, he saw Sacha’s thin blade piercing into his head, but a small drop of blood dripping from the small, agonising wound.
”Of course, my own blade is too thin to cause a true wound, but the fact of the matter is, it doesn’t need to be, something you still seem to comprehend, though I suppose I can’t talk much, considering the Okuplok was of my own creation,”
Orochalcus felt his vision blackening, his grip on the heavy blade weakening, as he dropped it to the ground, feeling his consciousness fading.
”A careful wound to the right place can incapacitate any foe, you included. It’d be a waste to kill you here, an immense waste, so I’ll let you live, it’d be best for me not to get any blood on my hands, anyways.”
That was the last thing Orochalcus heard before he fell to the ground, the cold grip of unconsciousness washing over him, Sacha staring down at him like an insect the entire time. This was it, all he had worked for, amounting to nothing, absolutely nothing. It had all been useless, he hadn’t achieved anything with all of his suffering. He was defeated, plain and simple.