Chapter 31: Don't Fight Me, Ignite Me, Part 5

1

He was alive.

It had been close, too close, but he was still alive. Caim brought a hand to the wound on his neck, feeling the blood slide between his fingers. It was a familiar sensation, nothing to worry about.

But now it was humiliating.

Opponents of this level shouldn't have hurt him this much. How had he let this happen? But no matter how much he berated himself, it wouldn't change reality. Among his many powers, unfortunately, was not the ability to turn back the hands of time.

The only thing he could do was fix his mistakes and clean up this mess.

So, Caim stood up.

He slipped on his own blood, lost his balance, but didn't fall. He managed to stop himself by placing a hand on the ground.

That would have been even more humiliating, falling like a child still learning to walk. Although it wasn't like anyone would have seen his humiliation if it had happened. The first woman was dead, and the mage was in no condition to notice much. Crushed by the rubble, a leg torn off.

She had managed to launch one last attack, to her credit.

But Caim had survived.

This time, like every time, he had defeated his enemies. Demonstrating his superiority.

He approached the mage. Since he had survived her last attack, he had won. She wouldn't have time to cast another spell before bleeding out even if he left her alone. But he had no intention of just watching her die.

Of giving her a chance to turn the tables. He wasn't that stupid.

Caim raised a boot above her head. She was breathing heavily and looking at him with half-closed, cloudy eyes. But not so much that despair and, yes, resignation weren't evident.

Of course, what he intended was to crush her head.

It was better to ensure an opponent's death than to pierce their heart, especially in this place.

Quick.

He couldn't waste more time here. These obstacles weren't Bosses, not even Tower monsters, just humans who had decided to stand in his way. The last and greatest mistake of their lives.

He wasn't interested in the reason, he just had to move on quickly.

He hadn't come here for this.

He was here to become stronger, by defeating and devouring the Bosses, and conquering the Tower. To discover all its secrets. Besides, there were two very important people. Right now, he couldn't remember their names or faces, but he knew he had to hurry back to them. That his home was where they were, and he could only be happy there.

So he brought the boot down with force, crushing her skull...

No, he was going to, but he stopped at the last second.

That woman was looking at him. But not to silently beg for her life. It wouldn't do her any good, but it would be normal, everyone wanted to live. She was simply looking at him for no reason. What reason could she have? They were enemies who didn't know each other. But he needed a reason. Everything happened for a reason. Even if he didn't know it, that didn't mean it didn't exist.

How could she look at him like that and what was she looking for, what did she think she would achieve? He felt that he almost, almost understood it, but each time the understanding slipped through his fingers like golden sand lost in the vastness of the desert that, burning and radiant, seemed a reflected image of the sky dominated by the scorching sun.

Yes, the heat was draining his life, his strength.

But something was happening here. There was something he had to search for even in the vastness of the desert. Because, once lost, things couldn't come back just like that. The world worked that way. Miracles didn't exist, the only miracle was human will, so...

What?

Am I human now? Now I think I can consider myself a human being?

He felt like vomiting.

He swallowed.

Vomit what? What did he have to expel?

In any case, the nausea was horrible and the sun... What was he talking about? Sunlight didn't reach this place.

It didn't make sense.

To begin with, had any of this made sense?

Caim brought his hands to his head. His legs lost all strength and buckled. He didn't even remember when his arm had grown back. There were gaps, too many gaps, not just in the most important things, but even in the most basic like that. What was happening to him?

Was he going to lose everything?

I don't want to disappear!

2

He threw his head back. His eyes bulged out of their sockets. His face was red, covered in a cold sweat that cut deeply. He felt like an animal displayed in a butcher's shop window. He felt like a bomb about to explode. Uselessly, since his enemies were broken or dead at his feet, and if they weren't yet, they soon would be.

Except one, of course.

Except one.

There was still one enemy standing.

He had always been his greatest enemy, hadn't he?

"What do you think you're doing?" He laughed. "I am the one in control. You are nothing more than a dream I need to wake up from. I am ready to take the next step, and there is no one who can stand in my way anymore.

Don't you understand? I killed them. With your own hands."

A hoarse, malicious laugh.

That hatred was directed only at himself. He was like a worn-out corpse. If he hadn't thought quickly and covered his wounds with the tentacles, he would already be in the other world, so that comparison wasn't far from the truth. He was a "thing" worn out, full of holes. About to break.

But that was something temporary.

He hadn't come this far to die now. As always, he would overcome adversity, even if this time his opponent was himself.

3

Caim came to his senses on all fours with his throat burning.

Vaguely, he realized he had vomited. In any case, he had "returned" from some very distant place and still didn't feel too well.

As if he could disintegrate, so to speak, just like that. A leaf floating at the mercy of the wind, nothing more and nothing less than that. The gastric fluids and saliva slid freely out of his half-open mouth and formed a puddle on the ground. His mouth open and tongue out like a dog, a drooling mutt, and what had reduced him to this state? He couldn't remember, and maybe it was better that way, maybe he had forgotten for a good reason. The only thing he knew was the discomfort and pain and a fear he couldn't name.

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Above all that, the fear.

He had always lived with fear, damn it.

He saw a leg. A severed leg floating in a river of blood. He felt dizzy, thought he would lose consciousness. A reaction a bit too strong, senseless. He was used to violence as much as to fear, he had seen much worse things. It must be the hunger, the thirst, whatever was messing with his head.

He followed the blood trail with his eyes to a young, no, a woman.

(Did I do this?)

He didn't recognize her, but her distressed look pierced his heart anyway. Caim wasn't a monster. All his life he had strived to prove it, so it wasn't like he didn't want to lend a hand, but she had lost a leg and was bleeding out. It wasn't a simple problem to solve. Not alone, he had never been able to do much alone.

If... If she were here... If... What was her name?

She! She could fix it with a bit of her magic.

What was her name?

Damn it, what was her name? Why couldn't he remember anything?

4

He crawled forward.

Towards Victoria. He had to finish the job before she could ruin everything. When he killed her, he wouldn't regain control. He wouldn't want to regain control, in fact.

With a smile on his face, he would hand over the reins for the rest of his life and sink into the abyss of oblivion.

Otherwise, the pain would kill him.

Victoria should have lost consciousness long ago, dead, but somehow she still clung on. Persisted. Just like the other insignificant nuisance inside him.

It bothered him, it wasn't how things were supposed to be. But it didn't matter as long as things followed their course. As long as...

"You've been close, but I win," he declared.

"No. You may kill us, but that doesn't mean you've won. There's still Caim."

"He's too weak to go on without you."

Victoria remained silent. Maybe she didn't want to admit it out loud, but she knew he was right. Anyway, it didn't matter what she thought. She was going to disappear from this world in a moment.

He raised his leg. He was fixated on ideas, so he would scatter all his... ideas on the ground and crush them under the sole of his boots to make sure.

He stopped shortly after, but this time it wasn't by his own will.

Something pierced his back and came out the other side, wet with his blood. Wet, the daggers. It could only be one person. It didn't make sense.

"You should be dead," he spat.

But it could only be one person.

And so it was. Yonah had struck back, stabbing him deeply. He clicked his tongue. I should have made sure, he thought. But he had, or thought he had. "He" wasn't the only one with gaps, apparently.

"I didn't get the message."

On top of that, with mockery and swagger, that little bitch.

"Pretend all you want, put on airs, but you're not ready to give it your all against this body."

In response, she yanked both daggers out abruptly, eliciting a gasp of pain from his throat, and made a move to attack. But she could never complete the movement, as he turned and punched her in the face.

The crunch sounded like a lightning strike. It sent her flying far and high.

"A sane person would have pretended to be dead. You should know you can't get in my way anymore, so why try?"

Yonah laughed. Naturally, that wasn't the response of a sane person either.

"You're not Caim. And those are definitely not his words.

Wipe that stupid look off your face, you know it's true. After all, otherwise, you wouldn't be here. He would have let himself be killed or gotten out of the way a long time ago."

He twisted his face.

He felt that Yonah had gotten too close to the truth about him and the nature of the relationship between the two. Even when he himself didn't fully understand it, strange as it seemed.

Yonah was lying on the ground, with a hand on the cheek he had punched. Her mouth full of blood that she kept spitting out to avoid choking, near her, forming a puddle, another puddle.

But still, she managed to look proud and dignified, as if she had won or something. As if the fight wasn't decided when the outcome couldn't be more obvious. It was irritating, even if it was just a bluff to affect him, it was irritating, he couldn't resist taking the bait. What good did it do him? None, but he went for her first anyway. The crippled bitch would die on her own anyway.

So much excitement wouldn't exactly slow down the bleeding, besides.

"Okay, let's say you're right," he said, stomping on her, breaking her other hand. "What the hell do you care? What do you think you're going to gain from that? He's mine and always will be. My victory was predestined from the beginning. You, you are nothing but lambs. Sacrifices on the altar of my incarnation. So I don't care who the hell you knew, I am Caim. I am the only Caim that exists now and will ever exist."

Yonah...

She laughed again.

"You don't even believe that yourself. You're scared."

"I am not afraid of anything!"

"Then... go ahead. Kill me. Kill me if you can."

"What can you do to stop me? You can't even stand up, your legs are shaking like jelly."

"I wasn't talking about me."

Bitch. What a bitch.

He frowned.

As you wish, he thought.

He threw a punch. She had survived the first one, but it hadn't been a real punch. He had moved his fist as if to crush a fly. His real punch would make her head explode like a piñata. A wild smile spread across his face.

He had been playing with his prey from the beginning, so this outcome was inevitable, predictable. But that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy it.

One of the tentacles shot out as well. A large, thick whip like a tree trunk, but it didn't crush her. It pierced her chest and reached her heart with ease. If there was anyone strong enough to stop him, obviously the answer was himself.

He gritted his teeth.

The pain. The blood gushing out. The sensation of something wet and throbbing at his fingertips.

Yes. The tentacle hadn't just reached his heart, it had tried to rip it out. So he had unconsciously stopped it. Only after that did he realize what he was holding in his hand.

His own heart, with some blood vessels already torn. That's why the blood wouldn't stop flowing.

He was serious.

"Are you crazy? This way we'll both die."

He gritted his teeth harder. He hadn't been aware of what had happened until it was too late, so naturally, he couldn't do anything about it. That was the most worrying, the most irritating thing.

"As you wish. Anyway, they are not like us. They can't get stronger with each battle. On the contrary, continuous battles only weaken them and bring them closer to death. So this place will swallow them without me having to lift a finger."

Caim pushed the heart back into his chest.

There was no resistance.

He joined the halves of his shattered chest as well. In time, it would regenerate just like the rest of the damage. It would happen faster if he had eaten them, but this place was full of snacks. Surely he could find something to fill his stomach and heal all his wounds.

While he continued advancing and evolving, unstoppable, towards the top of the Tower.

Towards the summit of all summits.

5

Yonah sighed with relief, though it was a bit early to celebrate anything.

He had left. She was convinced that Caim would fight for her, but she hadn't said she was sure it would work. Or how she had imagined things.

She had been fully prepared to die proving to that monster that he didn't have Caim under control, that he hadn't won anything, only prolonged the inevitable. It had never crossed her mind that she would survive.

Caim would live. Despite having seen him open his own chest wide and threaten to tear out his heart, the thing that now had control had reacted as if he had cut himself with paper, so she could assume it was a wound of that level for that monster. Although that wasn't exactly good news, soon he would be as good as new.

And Victoria, well...

She swallowed.

Yes, she had started celebrating prematurely. How stupid she could be. She crawled through the blood and dust to reach her. Her legs still wouldn't listen to her. She felt like a broken doll. It wasn't the first time or the last, for sure, that she had thought something like that, but that didn't make it any less true.

She couldn't throw this body away and buy another one, however.

What was lost was lost forever. What was lost...

Victoria had her eyes closed.

But that was all, she was alive. She put a hand over her mouth and checked that she was still breathing. She could take her pulse, but her hands were trembling too much (her hands and the rest of her damn body). Besides, if that was enough, a simpler test, then there was no doubt, she was alive, she was.

For now.

That was the point, for now. Because she had lost consciousness and her torn-off leg wouldn't get better on its own by the time she woke up.

"Victoria, please, open your eyes. I need you to wake up. I'd rather die than see you die. I beg you, wake up."

She didn't shed a single tear, not even had them in her eyes to begin with. Why would she cry?

She didn't feel like crying, she felt like she was dying.

The worst part, of course, was that it wasn't true. If she didn't wake up, Victoria would die, but Yonah would be fine. She would recover. Then she would have her hands tied because Caim was still alive and needed her, she was the only one who could save him and, anyway, she would never leave him alone.

Besides, saving him would become the only way to make her oldest friend's death mean something. So she would have no choice but to continue even if every cell in her body wanted to give up.

Yonah didn't want to think about that future, much less live in it even for a second. But it was approaching. Its steps were like earthquakes.

While she shook her, trying to wake her up, even if she didn't respond to her desperate attempts, she could believe that future would be nothing more than an idea in her head. The worst possible possibility, but nothing more.

Until her breath stopped. With her breath, all hope would die and the possibility would become a real nightmare she would have to live with for the rest of her life, whether long or short.

And she knew it would be short.

Whether she saved Caim on her own or not, it would surely be short. Deep down, she knew it.

So, for the sake of the three of them, she had to wake up and heal the wound. Then they would have all the time to chase that monster and free Caim from its clutches, he wouldn't leave the Tower soon, it was clear he had no intention, that Caim and he, apart from sharing a body, shared the goal to some extent...

She thought about irrelevant things to distract herself from the paleness of her face, so pale that the only touch of color was the bloodstains, and how labored her breathing was becoming.

The essential thing was that they were a team.

Either they survived together or they fell together.

And they had to survive.

Crying bitterly, she begged for them to get out of this, and didn't stop shaking her and calling her so that, following her voice, she could find her way back home.

Don't Fight Me, Ignite Me (5): FIN