"Who is it that you are fighting?"

The wind rushing through the forest, accompanied by the distant sound of leaves fighting for their life.

"Who is the villain of your story?"

The lush green mound, with a lonely gravestone.

"Lady, who is your enemy?"

Her smirk deepened, her cheeks flushed and a brief glimmer passed through her eyes.

"Enemy? That would make things easier, wouldn't it? All it would take is to kill one person, I would have done that long ago. But, Seraph, you see, this villain...this enemy you speak of...is right here", she put a finger on the center of her forehead, "Right here, see? If it's within you, then its as strong as you. An enemy you can't defeat."

"That's bullshit", my insignificant murmur, gave her a good laugh.

***************

"Don't worry, I've got it right here!", I crouched beside Lubbock, who was little more than a deformed clump of blood and machine.

"My...arm...", his voice boiled out of the bloody mess he was.

"I've got it, see!", I was holding one of his arms, that had gone flying somewhere far away.

It was his human arm, so I suppose he must have wanted it back really bad. I had to go look for it, but thanks to my senses being so heightened after merging with Nasty, I was able to smell it.

"Thank...you....Seraph", his hand reached out from the mishmash of ripped flesh and blood and grabbed mine.

His hold was very weak. It barely amounted as a hold.

"Lubbock, don't die! You hear?!", I wasn't sure he could hear me with all the noise behind us.

Chopper was still roaring through the skies.

"I...won't die...", he said, taking his arm from my hand, "See...just have to...fix this."

No, I wanted to tell him, there was so much more to fix. But I was afraid of saying it. I didn't want to admit it to myself. So I nodded in silence, even though I wished time would just stop for an hour or two before whatever was trying to kill us would kill us.

"Don't worry, Seraph. I won't take him", a voice interrupted us.

I looked up to find Grim. He was still stripped down to his waist, his hair outgrown to waist length too, and all the holes Lady had put over his body, were there all the same.

"And if someone else comes to claim his soul, I'll do the talking", he said calmly, but seriously.

"YOU BASTARD!", I jumped at him, grabbing his neck (because there was no collar).

I choked him, intending to rip his neck off. I had lost more than just my cool and a part of me was taken over by Nasty. So I really was on edge.

"This won't change a thing. How many times do I have to tell you?", regardless of the force I was using on him, it seemed to have no effect.

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU BACK THEN? THE HELL D'YOU WANT?!"

"Calm down, Seraph. I'm here to show you something."

I shoved him back, hissing at him.

"You've all done good until now but...I hope you realize you haven't even begun to make a difference."

Meanwhile, I was trying to kill him with my glare.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Look there", he pointed to the sky.

I had to focus quite a bit to even make out what he was trying to show me. The sky was riddled with fiery meteors, so it wasn't exactly easy to tell what he was saying.

But after a long enough struggle, I was able to see it. And I felt some life leaving my body when I realized what it was. I couldn't even say anything. I just watched it agape, wide-eyed.

"That...", a broken voice escaped.

"That's the cumulation of everything till now. Although, not quite", he said in a low, calm voice.

"What...?"

"Where did all those fire balls in the sky come from, you wonder? Well, I had to have created them out of something. But instead, I created them out of nothing, so a void was left behind. A void...", he pointed in the same direction again, "...a void big enough to swallow everything."

I was looking at a void, still distant, but a void nonetheless. Eternal darkness, nothingness. The absolute end. End of all ends.

"Grim...why did you do this?", I turned back to face him, poker faced.

He grinned cheekily and opened his mouth to say something.

"Not that", I interrupted him before he could go on, "The truth."

His expression shifted back to a serious one.

"Seraph, are you sure you've got time for that?", he asked.

"Nothing can make a difference now anyway. When the others realize there's a void there, they'll stop too."

"So you ARE capable of making rational decisions!"

"Grim", I looked at him without a single expression on my face.

Realizing I wasn't going to stop till I got an answer, he sighed, defeatedly.

"Seraph, when you were in that fake hell with Prophet, for all those years, did you never consider simply dying and ending it all?"

"No."

"Right?"

"Well, it's not that we could die there in the first place, even if we tried to. We didn't remember most things, not even how long we'd been there."

"But the thought never occurred to you, Seraph. Not even once. Right?", he asked.

I nodded, hesitantly.

"Have you wondered why?"

"No."

"But you see, Seraph, you did give up. You did decide to die and let it end it all."

"I didn't. What are you saying?", I asked, monotonously.

"Right near the end. Did you not accept your fate? Did you not resign?"

The end? I pondered. Ah, that's right! The end!

Grim must have realized that I knew what he was talking about.

"So why did you give up then?", he asked.

"Because that's what Prophet wanted. I thought, if it was his choice to let me die then...then I..."

"No, Seraph. It's because Prophet left your side. You were all alone. That is why you decided it would be fine if you died."

He was right, I suppose. Because in that fake world, I had no one but Prophet. I didn't even have my memories. So without Prophet...I was all alone. But Nasty was there. I didn't remember him. And when I did, I tried to protect him. I wanted to live once again. I didn't want to die there.

"Do you understand now, Seraph?"

I looked at him, without a word.

"I've been here from the beginning. Always one. Always alone. Ever since I tamed that sheep, I've been the only constant in this world. A god?", he laughed scornfully, "Don't make me laugh! I'm caged here. In this pitiful world. Devoid of all sense! There is no beauty in this world. I'm tired of it, exhausted to my very core."

"Aren't you alive...?"

He laughed that sinister, mocking laugh again.

"Alive?! What are you saying, you degenerate imbecile! Life is for humans. I am not alive. I haven't lived. I have never lived at all."

"That can't be. You were once human, weren't you Grim? You are just a god, aren't you?", I asked calmly.

He looked at me with a truly hateful look in his eyes.

"I have never lived. Never as a human, and most certainly not as a god. I've constantly been watching it all, without forgetting a single moment of it. And the more I laugh at how moronic you humans are, the more I can feel a piercing cold in my brain. How many times have I tried to break out, do you know? But as long as you ingrates exist, I will have to exist too. And thus!", he pointed to the void in the distant sky, grinning ear to ear.

"But you have Lady now, don't you?"

"Lady? Ah, Lady! That woman hasn't even seen thirty years in this world, and she's already lost her soul. She reminds me of the child I once was. When I was human until I was betrayed by that God...! But just knowing the darkness that awaits her, I can't help but loath her. But if not I then who would save her? To her and to my own misery, I am putting an end."

I sighed.

"I wonder where the other gods are. No one came to stop you, after all."

"And why would they? We don't mingle in other businesses. After all, even if we don't agree on most things, we were all tricked by that hateful GOD!"

"Tricked?", I laughed, looking at the distant impending doom, "Don't you think too highly of yourself? I don't know if that GOD would have had time just to trick you."

"Is that what you think?", he laughed too.

I looked about. Lubbock had tired of trying to fix his arm and had ceased moving. Sight, who was a little ways away, looked like he was all out of magic. He looked older than ever I remembered. His vibrancy was all gone. I felt sad, absolutely crushed to see him like that. But I still wore the same poker face. Chopper was about to crash too. And Deli, who'd been going the strongest, was buried under frustration just as much as the meteors were trying to bury her.

Like Grim said, all our efforts had been in vain.

"Well, Grim, when I die, you send me to that place, alright? Don't die without sending me there. I want to see him again."

"Very well. Now that's some positivity!", Grim smiled.

What a pity! I thought. Why would you smile at a time like this? It was such a pity that of all times, this would make you smile. All the same, as I was looking in the distance, I smiled too.