"Give it up for Kirarin!" the emcee shouts over the PA system. I fold my arms and lean against the wall backstage while waiting for the concert to be over. The staff milling about backstage quickly recognize who I am and give me a wide berth, all the while casting sly glances at me. Its annoying being a public figure, or rather a public figure that actually matters. Everyone knows who you are, but no one really wants to approach you, unless they want something.

Or unless they want to kill you.

I am taking a big risk, travelling to Six Trees with only a minimum escort, especially when it is public knowledge that he is based here. The Tyrant's blackguard could come barging through the backstage entrance at any moment to take my life. From the records I have of the blackguard's activities, I know that regular guards would just delay him, and I would inevitably have to face him down with the gifts provided by milady. Still I am not being completely foolish, since where Kira goes, Enma is close by. Between my old comrade and I, the blackguard would still be hard pressed.

The risk of attack is minimal. Should be minimal. But then again, the blackguard has the habit of showing up like a bad penny.

First the attack at the warehouse. Then the massacre at the cathedral. The raid on the Archmage's laboratory. And now the assault on the Urban Redevelopment Initiative. One by one the pillars supporting milady's design are being kicked away. If the blackguard's pattern holds, the next target will likely be the Archmage himself. I need to warn that annoying man to take the proper precautions and not leave everything to the threads of milady.

I always regretted making the Archmage a part of our plans, but it had become a matter of necessity. No one in any of the three worlds knew more about souls than he did, and that knowledge was crucial in passing the test of the All-Father once Salvation was reactivated. It was not that I did not know how to pass the test, that part was easy, but the real issue lay in the fact that none of milady's faithful including myself had the qualifications to even begin the test. The Archmage was needed to prepare the proper credentials that Salvation would recognize.

Unfortunately, the Archmage had not been guided to milady through faith or revelation. When he came to know of milady's existence, it broke him. His worldview was twisted upside down and a void opened in his heart. The Archmage is unstable and dangerous, but I must keep him compliant until Salvation has been revived. Frustration builds in my heart at the conundrum that I have been forced into. All this problems should never have occurred. The worst part is, we brought on ourselves. We seized defeat from the jaws of victory all those years ago.

...

Our quest was at an end. The three of us, comrades led by Milady, had stormed the Tyrant's fortress and put his servants to flight. The self-proclaimed True Emperor lay bloody and beaten at our feet, and we had ordered that the monster be carried out from the castle and paraded before the common folk, so that they knew that the time of justice had arrived. The holy crusade was over, and all the sacrifices that we had made were not for nothing.

It was a joyous day indeed, where the common folk lost their fear of the Tyrant and pelted its heaving bloodied bulk with stones as our footmen dragged it up to the execution square. From this day onwards, there would be no more sacrifices, no more demands from this monster. And it was a sweet sight when milady sliced the Tyrant's tongue out, so that it could no longer dirty our ears with its threats of vengeance and retribution.

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I held the Tyrant's head down while Enma readied the executioner's ax. That was the moment that should have ended everything. When the three worlds should have finally received their freedom. But the Tyrant had one final trick up its sleeve, a grand deception, that would destroy everything we had fought for.

Blood spurted from the stump of the Tyrant's tongue as it screamed incoherently in rage at us. Before Enma could bring his ax down, a tidal wave of blood exploded from the Tyrant's mouth sweeping the assembled crowd away. The earth trembled in the Tyrant's death throes as its body began to tear apart. And for seven days and seven nights, the blood flowed and flowed and flowed.

A crimson tide drowned all three worlds, and millions died in what we thought was the Tyrant's final act of destruction. It was a cataclysm, the shock of which broke the barriers keeping the three worlds apart. When it was all over, the survivors of the three worlds gathered with us around what was left of the Tyrant's carcass, fearful of whatever would come next. What we saw took our breath away.

The Tyrant's skeleton was composed entirely of valuable metals and its organs were fleshy bags filled with precious gems. It was more wealth than any of us had seen in our lives. Even milady, born into royalty, could only dream of possessing a fraction of such incredible wealth. We were all starving and close to death, our nations having being ruined in the Tyrant's last gasp at revenge, but eating a mouthful of the Tyrant's flesh restored us completely. The soil of the three worlds, now one, drank deeply on the Tyrant's blood, and the land became rich and fertile.

We were saved, and received our just reparations from the Tyrant. And the people rejoiced and proclaimed milady their goddess. The gold and silver from the Tyrant's corpse were used to build a great city, a holy land, where milady would lead all the people as their immortal empress. The future was bright and held limitless promise.

Then the horror started.

Children, born dead in the womb. Food that would poison the most faithful of milady's believers. And worst of all, the world began to split apart into three again. The Tyrant had never died. It had escaped and continued the war against us from the shadows. The hearts of the people turned from milady and their eyes only saw the riches that the Tyrant provided. Revolts and uprisings broke out throughout the holy kingdom. We could not fight an enemy that only existed in the shadows. Slowly but surely, the Tyrant's grasp began to tighten over the three worlds once more. In the quiet moments of the night, I thought that I could hear the incoherent, mocking laughter of the Tyrant, coming from my supper, my furniture, my clothes.

In desperation, milady led my companions and I back to the north, where Salvation lay, in the hope that a solution could be found. But there we received the heaviest blow yet.

We had eaten the Tyrant's flesh and drank its blood. Our bodies had been polluted to the extent where Salvation refused to acknowledge us as children of the All-Father. Only milady still retained the purity to be granted access and there a terrible bargain was struck. Salvation could not defeat the Tyrant outright, but it could allow milady to ascend to a new state of existence, where she could combat our old foe directly. But the price was that milady had to leave us, her friends, her companions, her lovers, forever.

....

"Mike!" Kira's happy greeting stirs me from my reverie.

Seeing Kira's youthful beauty makes me feel old. Its difficult, being an immortal soul anchored to a mortal body. Unlike the others, I can remember what the old times were like, I am burdened by the responsibility to remember. I can never tell my dearest friends who I really am. No one can ever know my true name. And I must bear the agony of dying, again and again and again. Each time reviving in one of my descendants, stealing their futures away.

If the Council knew what immortality was really like, they would have not have agreed to the proposal I offered. I gaze enviously at Enma, who leans heavily on a walking stick from her injuries suffered at the hands of the blackguard. Every start is a fresh start with him. Or is it her now? She still views the world with enthusiasm and commitment to her code.

Whereas I keep doing what I do because it is the only thing I know. I wonder where that serving boy is presently. It would be nice to have one final gathering with all of us here. But duty calls. The fight continues.

"Kira." I say with a smile I don't feel, "I've got good news for you."