Ryuji slowly made his way down the steps. The first face to see him was Jessy, whose eyebrows furrowed. She looked him over from head to toe, stopping at his bloodshot eyes.

"Do you need to talk about something, pardner?"

Her concern was evident, and just hearing it raised his mood somewhat.

"I do actually, but only with Dot. I don't feel comfortable talking about this with anyone else... sorry."

Jessy's eyes looked down at the floor, hiding whatever turmoil was visible in them. When she looked back up, they were back to their normal starry self.

"Well, you heard the man. Dot! Get your ass up there!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Dot shot up and started marching to the bedroom Ryuji had slept in. Ryuji followed closely behind, his eyes unfocused. Once they entered the room, he shut the door and sat on the bed. With a smile, Dot dove on the bed to lay next to him.

"Sooooooo, what's got you so serious, Ryu? Have a bad dream? Need me to give you a little heartfelt affection, perhaps?"

Covering her smug smile with her gloved hand Dot guffawed. She leaned in to give him a fake hug, but the second her hands made contact with him, Ryuji slapped them away. Dot looked forward with a stiff face, her arms still outstretched. Then slowly, she put her hands in her lap and looked away as if to avoid Ryuji seeing her hurt expression.

"Uh... sorry. I just... really don't want to be touched right now. It's not you or anything like that, okay?"

Awkwardly and quietly, Ryuji attempted to put her fears to rest. All he got in response was a single nod. Then as if nothing had happened, she turned back towards him to reveal a toothy grin.

"I'm all ears, you know!"

A sharp intake of breath came from Ryuji. 'The reason I keep losing is that their abilities don't follow any logic. I can't prepare for something if I don't know what I'm up against! All I keep hearing is authority this and authority that! The only other person I've ever heard that from is her!' Ryuji calmed himself down before speaking. "Dot, I need to know about authorities. Can I have a quick crash-course?"

"I see, I see. Then you have come to the right girl. As the authority of chaos, I consider myself pretty much an expert on this stuff!"

Dot leaned back before announcing her title and striking a nerdy pose.

"Then please do."

"Riiiight. You do know that you were supposed to learn this in the academy, right? Although I do faintly remember you passing out that day."

"Of course I did."

Dot shifted restlessly at Ryuji's self-deprecating reply.

"It's all good! They don't even tell you all there is to know about them anyway. How could they? It's not like any of them have had an authority."

Ryuji wordlessly waited. Dot looked over nervously after receiving no reply and quickly moved on with her explanation.

"An authority is like a superpower! A cheat! Super rare as well. If I had to guess, there's got to be less than forty of them. And to top it off, each one is unique."

"Where do they come from?"

"Couldn't tell ya! But I do know each one represents an aspect of humanity... or something. That's where the power comes from!"

Ryuji leaned in while Dot stared at the ceiling and started kicking her legs off the side of the bed. "Tell me about the power."

"The power is based on two things. The aspect itself and the thought process of the user."

"Huh?"

"How do I put it? Um... what do you think chaos is?"

Ryuji looked at her, befuddled, before slowly answering. "I think chaos is sort of just doing random bad things for no reason at all."

"See, I think chaos is more like a giant joke or prank that takes tons of setup that others might not get, but you totally do! That difference in thought right there is why we would have different abilities even if you had the same authority as mine. That being said, you are not nearly chaotic enough, so your soul would just crumble if you got it!"

His head was being filled with valuable knowledge at an astonishing rate. He slowed down his pacing and decided to ask a less important question to give his brain a break. "If it's so rare, then how do you get one?"

Dot put up three gloved fingers. "First and foremost is to kill an authority user. By killing one, you automatically get their authority! The second is if an owner wants to gift it to someone. Of course, when they give the authority away, they die instantly."

"What if they die naturally?"

"Well, they don't age at all, so time isn't an issue, but if they die in an accident or something, then at the spot they passed away a trial will be made. That's how I got mine!"

"Wait, they don't age?"

Ryuji eyed Dot up and down with squinted eyes. Dot took notice and immediately crossed her arms.

"Hmph! I know what you want to ask, and no, I will not tell you my age! Don't worry though I'm not a doddering old hag just yet!"

A strange inconsistency floated through Ryuji's mind. "Hey, if you get their authority once you kill them, then what happens if they get revived?"

"Once they die, it's all over for them. They can't be revived ever."

"Why not?"

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"An authority bypasses what should be possible for a soul to accomplish. So when someone with an authority dies, their soul breaks from the pressure. Without a soul, you can't come back to life. Of course, there are lots of other bad things about authorities as well. For instance, you can't have two, or else your soul breaks!"

Ryuji sat deep in thought as he processed what she said. 'If that's true then...' He looked up at the expectant smiling joker and asked another question. "What does it look like when someone's soul breaks?"

"Well, the soul is the source of all bodily mana, so if it breaks, then the body sort of fizzles out as well. I don't know what it would look like exactly, but instead of a body, you would probably find some gross sludge instead."

He closed his eyes and remembered the death of Rhea. 'She killed two of them, yet her soul didn't crumble at all. She died to sloth's hand instead.' With a sigh, he asked the most important question he had. "Do authorities have a weakness?"

"Duh! I mean, an authority is literally like having a god's divine right but with none of the consequences. Normally to enter the realm of gods, you give up your human knowledge. But authorities get to have a divine-like power and their skills. Something like that comes with tons of downsides!"

"Like not being able to be revived?"

"Yeah! But the biggest problem is that every authority has a price to pay. Think of it as a drawback from getting something so awesome."

Ryuji started to get the picture she was painting. "So if I find their price."

Dot nodded in approval. "You'll be able to kill them for sure."

"But how do I figure out what their price is?"

"A price is usually two-fold. One is personal, and the other is a limit placed on the ability. But figuring out what it is would be extremely hard unless you fought them and lived to tell the tale. Otherwise, you'll never figure it out."

Dot waited for more questions to come, but one glance at Ryuji's scrunched face was enough to tell her that he was done. She jumped off the bed and headed for the door.

"Wait!"

Dot halted at the door before turning around. Ryuji's eyes were swimming with uncertainty, but the question still came.

"What price did you pay?"

She looked in his direction emotionlessly as if she was reliving something before smiling.

"Ryu, do you honestly think I was born looking like this? Do you think I wear these gloves and this dress because they're stylish? I wear em so passerby's don't get sick to their stomach. Same reason I was wearing those goggles till you said I shouldn't."

Dot confirmed what Ryuji had already imagined, and with each word spoken, his eyes drifted to the floor. He couldn't bear to look at her face anymore after being so tactless.

"I'm sorry."

"Look, Ryu, not that you have to listen to me, but I would really appreciate it if you didn't tell the others about our conversation just now. Especially not that sword toting hussy, alright? They're not gonna be as open-minded about this as you, is all."

His mind started racing as he connected dots. He remembered how everyone knew who he was talking about the second he called them by their authority. 'If they knew she was chaos would they turn on her? Is she a criminal or something? More importantly, why would she trust me enough to tell me all this after we just met?' He thought back to their first encounter where she labeled herself as insane, and right now he was very much in agreeance with her. Still, something more pressing was clawing in the back of his mind. The crash-course had indeed informed him of many things he was unaware of, but more than that, it made him realize something. If he was right about this, then that would only raise more questions.

"Hey Dot! I actually have something I want to tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?"

"A-O-kay!"

His breath felt caught in his throat. 'If anyone is going to believe me about this, then it's her!' With one last push, he managed to get it off his chest.

"I think I have an authority."

Dot's jaw tightened. Her brow creased as her head tilted. Her hand started to rub her chin. "Go on."

He hesitated, afraid that if he let it out now, he might burst into tears. "I've been dying and coming back! When I die, I go back in time like... like a save point or something! But I don't get to choose the spot and, and! Huh?"

The world around him faded to white. His eyes could perceive nothing. Like a delayed reaction, his head erupted into pain. Wobbly legs cause him to fall to the ground. Rolling around on the floor, he clutched his skull, waiting for the pain to leave him.

"This too is your freedom, but I do not think you'll find it to your liking."

A soothing voice sounded through his head. His last moments in Japan came to him. 'The voice!?'

He opened his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. He could see shapes again, something he would normally take for granted. At this moment, however, he was eternally thankful that he wasn't blind. His mind wandered as he lay on the floor.

"Oh yeah, Dot!"

Ryuji slowly pushed himself off the floor.

"Why is it so... dark?"

The lively world that existed here just a few seconds ago now looked much closer to something in grayscale. He turned around to face the door.

"Dot?" On the floor in front of him was the collapsed figure of his best friend. "Dot!" Ryuji rushed over and flipped her body over. "What?"

Her body felt cold to the touch. Ink colored fluid streamed down from the void where her eyes would be. The very same fluid was also slowly dripping out of her mouth. He felt sick to his stomach.

"Is this my price?" His teeth gnashed together hard enough for him to hear a crack from his jaw. "I should have known better! I should have figured it wouldn't be that easy! Sacred High Heal!" He incanted but didn't feel the flow of his own mana. In fact, he couldn't feel mana anywhere. "Rhea!" He knew of only one other person who had healing potential. With Dot in his hands, he rushed down the stairs.

"...Wh...y?"

Cards spread out on the table dripped with black fluid. The floor of the kitchen was stained with much the same. The bodies of people he called friends were open-eyed. Their expressions were unchanging as if they were immortalized in the moment. He couldn't bear to keep looking at the horrific smile of Jessy. After laying Dot on the couch, he opened the door and checked outside.

The air on his skin felt stagnant. The grass was withered. Stray animals that were roaming around looked much the same as the people. Everyone floated in pools of void. Even the sun, which should be setting, looked duller than normal. Everything just looked-

"Dead."

"Oh, I found you."

A man who defied existence stood before him. His presence was overwhelming. Instinctively Ryuji took a few steps back.

"Who are you? What happened? What do you want?"

One after another, Ryuji laid on the questions while the man in front of him quietly listened. After he asked them all, Ryuji waited with bated breath for an answer.

"I am Harbinger. I am the embodiment and signaling of the end. As for what happened, everything alive is rejecting my presence and ceasing function as a result. What I want is irrelevant. I was born to do a job, and I will carry that out."

"Who the hell made you? And why are you even talking to me? Is that what you were born to do?"

Ryuji belted out hate towards the thing in front of him. In response, his face had barely changed. He was starting to remind him of a certain red-haired individual that made his skin crawl.

"I was made by the Arbiter. I'm talking to you because only two things are alive at the moment, and you will die of your own accord shortly. So in the meantime, I have some free moments to think. Like why are you still alive? Why was I created now? I would imagine it was because it obtained new information that led to the conclusion that life should be ended."

"So this Arbiter just sits on his throne while we all die? Just because he was afraid of something? What a load of bullshit!"

Ryuji screamed at the unfair world. Doing so caused him to falter and crash to the ground. Black fluid began to pour from his nose. Ryuji felt like he understood what was going on and why this hadn't happened any previous time. This was his fault. He killed them, which means he could no longer speak of his problems. Bottling them up inside was his only choice. Dread spread throughout his system as bodily functions got harder to perform. The knowledge that he could always just talk about if he wanted was a pivotal part of his mental stability through these trying times. Now that he knew it was no longer possible, he felt terror takes its hold.

"The Arbiter is long dead. Technically speaking, it was the first to die when I was created."

"Then... who's the... other?"

A gleam shined in the thing's eye as it looked toward the horizon. "I would like to know the same thing."

The greyscale lighting became darker and darker as the fluid in his eyes poured out. A black world was the last thing he saw as his brain slowed down. Following his dwindling heartbeat, he had one last thought.

'Why is this so familiar?'