"I don't want to kill you...Serena...not for your sake...", my eyes were rolling back into my head because of the impact, but I held on, "...but for Doctor Ema's."

Coming from someone that was getting pummeled for the last ten minutes, this must have sounded odd or even ridiculous. Luckily, Serena had no sense of humor for the time being.

"For her sake? Then, do so. Please don't kill me", she said before flinging me another hundred miles.

Of course, I was aware of the fact that my real body might die if I were to die in this world. I couldn't be sure of the impact it would have. But I did mean what I said. I wanted to spare Serena, at least. Lubbock would have hated that if he were here. So I was glad that he wasn't.

Still, the mystery of how she was holding on remained to be solved. Serena already knew she wasn't human, like she'd always been believing. She knew her memories weren't real. By now, she should have spiraled into a vegetative state. She ought to be shutting down, instead she was livelier than ever before. I wonder how Doctor Ema had made that possible, especially since she could never achieve it before.

There had to be something, I thought, something I was missing.

For now, the glitches had slowed down. I couldn't help but think it was Lubbock's doing, in order to buy me some time. I could only imagine the pressure it was putting on him. I wasn't sure how things were faring between him and Ema. Serena and I fought in the city. Although, it was just a one sided ass kicking. For now, anyway.

"Serena...", I intended to buy myself some time to catch my breath, "Do you...know what your mother did?"

Its not that I hadn't fought back at all. But she overpowered me by a great measure. I realized I was powerless in Shamballa.

Serena didn't answer my question, no matter how many times I asked her. I was brutally on the receiving end for a long time after that.

"Serena...", I attempted again, "Do you love her?!"

She let her head hang to a side.

"It hurt..."

I was suddenly all ears. She was finally responding.

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"It hurt every time...very much."

At first, I wasn't getting what she meant.

"I didn't want to come back. I didn't want to stick around."

Then it finally dawned on me.

"But she did it again. And again."

I understood what Doctor Ema had done to her. I understood how she was making Serena hold on to her sanity. I knew now why she hadn't shut down.

"I hated her! It hurt so much! How could she do that?!"

I shouldn't have asked her that. It sort of flipped a switch in her. She was going to kill me now. I knew it because she looked like she wanted to kill me. Before, she was only trying to drive me away, that's why I was still alive. I suppose, the Serena I knew was still in there for a while. But she seemed to have vanished just then.

"But...she is...", I thought I saw her single remaining eye glitch out, "Mother."

Doctor Ema took every single memory of Serena, from every single time she had tried to bring her back and loaded it into the current Serena. That was why she was still holding on. Perhaps the machine had realized that even shutting itself down wasn't going to earn it an escape.

"I love her."

"I see. I understand", I said, smiling weakly, "I do too."

That was the first time I gave free reign to Nasty II. I unleashed him without losing control of myself. It seemed to me, in that perfect paradise of a world called Shamballa, even Nasty and I could exist together without hurting each other.

I felt safe, conscious, perfectly at ease, when I let Nasty out.

The scar on my chest bled out and a cloak of a very dark, almost black fire, emerged from it, engulfing me. My eyes were sealed close with that same fire. I didn't need eyes to see. I mastered a demon, a feat no one ever achieved before or ever again. But it was a feat that no one ever learned of. Except for Serena, of course.

Oblivion.

That was the power I held. I carried a sword with me, with a hilt quite like Ebony. I think that must have been from Nasty's last memories of me saving him. So I was a hero in his eyes! I thought that it was enough now. I cared little for a lot of things anymore. As for Serena, I knew I couldn't be a hero for her. I didn't intend to. For Ema though, this perhaps would set her free.

Once I cut something down with my sword, it stopped existing. I think even the memories of it were gone. The soul was entirely destroyed. I could just erase something as small as a rock and as big as a mountain and no one would know if it was there in the first place. I wondered why such a power was granted to me. Or was it granted to Nasty. I remembered Nasty's big round eyes.

Even for a demon, they carried no malice. How then, could this power be his?

"I'll probably be the only one that will remember you when you are gone, Serena", I said, my wounds having healed completely.

She smiled, unlike a machine, perhaps realizing the truth in my words.

"Serena is the machine. I am...", her single eye lit up for the last time, "...Sangmu."

I don't think her struggles against me were remarkable in any way. In fact, I don't think anything anyone could do against me when I was like that would have been remarkable. I could see why me and Nasty together were such a huge threat to the world. I was finally glad, instead of finding it sad, that I had asked Chopper to kill me when I was going crazy. I wondered though, if he'd be able to see my madness when a time like that did come. But if it was him, he could. Chopper could always see madness.