Chapter 34: Don't Fight Me, Ignite Me (8)

1

"We're close," said Yonah. "I can't explain it, but I feel it in my bones."

"Yeah, me too."

There were no signs of it. No sounds of fighting. The walls and ceiling didn't tremble, but somehow they knew. The reunion was approaching. The moment of truth.

They kept running upwards alone. It no longer felt like the monsters were hiding out of fear of the ultimate predator stalking the halls, but rather that they had disappeared after fulfilling their purpose.

"Are you ready?" Yonah asked.

"No. He defeated us so easily, and now he must be twice as strong. Our chances..." Victoria shook her head. She didn't want to finish the sentence. It would make that terrible thing too real. "I'm not ready to die either."

"It's true, we can't beat him in a fight." At least, not while they weren't fighting with the intent to kill. Obviously, they couldn't defeat someone ruthless with their hands tied behind their backs. "Our only chance is to bring him back."

Their eyes met. Without stopping running, of course. People who knew each other so well and for so many years didn't need words to have a conversation. Bringing him back. That's what they had tried before and almost ended up dead. It hadn't worked. It hadn't been a complete failure since otherwise, the monster would have finished them off, but it hadn't worked.

However, if they couldn't believe in that possibility, it made no sense to even try. It would be like admitting they had already lost Caim. Then, the right decision would be to give it their all to kill him. So he could at least rest in peace.

They couldn't do that. Even if it meant walking towards their destruction, they simply couldn't.

They looked away. That silent conversation lasted only a moment.

They increased their pace.

Just a little more.

She felt it close, Yonah could almost see Caim right in front of her. Part of her didn't want to know what state he was in. How far the transformation had progressed. She was scared. That scared her more than the fight that awaited them.

But she had to see it. She had to see it and drag him from the darkness back to the light. It was their responsibility.

After all, they could have saved him, but they had let things get to this point. Yonah didn't blame Victoria, but she did blame herself. It wasn't that she didn't believe Victoria could have succeeded in the first place, but she did believe she was better equipped for the job. It was funny. She was the withdrawn one, while Victoria had been the pastor's daughter, always in the public eye. But in the end, she had ended up being better with people.

In any case, it hadn't been enough, but it could have been. She could have done better. That fact had been eating her up inside for a long time.

There was no point in lamenting what could have been. The past was ruins, and the future was a mirage. The only thing that existed was the present.

Yonah took a deep breath, preparing to open the door to the present with her own hands.

2

Caim and the clone were fighting with everything they had.

A brutal battle. Their attack power was identical. Their speed was identical. Their weapons and abilities were identical. So there could only be one outcome. With each passing second, it seemed more like they had been thrown into a meat grinder.

Neither of them gave ground, but they were losing chunks of flesh. Blood and even entrails flowed like a river. The tentacles could only plug the wounds to a certain extent. Their legs trembled, but they stood firm.

They didn't look physically capable of continuing to fight, but they stood firm nonetheless. No, in fact, the intensity increased more and more instead of the other way around. As if they grew stronger the closer they got to death.

No, despite appearances, there was only one person in this strange space. This was a battle against himself. So it was natural that near-death experiences strengthened him.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be here.

The first thing his mother had done after holding him in her arms was to throw him off a cliff. She was his mother, after all. She could be evil, but she didn't have the stomach to kill him with her own hands. She had simply hoped the fall would kill him. And somehow, it hadn't.

He was one of the few babies who had a good reason to cry at the top of his lungs as soon as he arrived in this world. That was the first scar that united the devil's children. So it was natural that he grew stronger each time. The problem was that the enemy did too.

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Caim had the feeling he was getting close to an answer, perhaps the key to defeating the enemy. But no matter how close he was, it meant nothing if he couldn't touch it with his fingers. An answer that no one else had because it was inside his heart. He was the only one who could defeat himself. He couldn't depend on anyone else. Even if he wasn't alone, he would be alone in this.

They were even losing tentacles at the same rate. Scattering them across this white crystal void that was increasingly stained with blood red. The tentacles were a power he had gained in the Tower and quite recently, even. Maybe it had been a mistake from the beginning to use them. Those things weren't part of him. Not really. He hadn't earned that power; it had simply been given to him, and all for this. To unleash the monster he was now fighting against.

Wasn't that the right decision then? The key to his victory?

He had lost everything in his quest for the Tower's buried secrets. So why would using its tools lead to a good outcome? Because otherwise, he wouldn't stand a chance against himself. That was the answer of common sense. But if the simple and ordinary were enough, he didn't think things would have gone so wrong to get to this point.

At least he could try. Yes.

Caim lunged forward, making his tentacles disappear. Somehow, he managed to slip through the enemy's tangle of tentacles. He swung the sword, burying it in his neck. Blood flowed abundantly. From both. Because, of course, now that he was standing still, dozens of tentacles pierced him mercilessly. A miraculous moment hadn't allowed him to escape the obvious consequences.

But he had actually inflicted the most serious wound. He could survive dozens of tentacles piercing holes in his body. He had done it for... Hours? Days? In any case, cutting his neck or crushing his heart was different. Now he just had to finish the job.

Caim applied force to the sword with both hands. The blade penetrated a little deeper. The image of the enemy's blood staining the blade of his sword filled him with an almost sexual pleasure. His clone gritted his blood-stained teeth.

"Are you going to renounce my powers? Do you think that will save you?"

"Yes, why the hell would I keep doing what you want?"

The enemy twisted his tentacles inside him, tearing his entrails apart. Caim kept pushing the sword. The blade penetrated deeply, cutting his neck. A little more, and he would decapitate him. So, of course...

The enemy pushed him away. Made him fly. He had plenty of grip for that with so many tentacles clinging to his entrails.

Caim fell to the ground in a pool of his own blood. He felt like there was more blood inside than outside his body. There were too many wounds through which bones could be seen. He could feel too many organs against the open wounds, threatening to slip out.

However, not only was he still alive, he was fine. Enough to keep fighting, in any case. He couldn't get rid of everything the Tower had given him. Even if he wanted to. If he had, he would be dead now... Wouldn't he?

Groaning in pain, Caim stood up. He managed to get up in time mainly because the enemy approached him without any hurry. As if the outcome of this fight meant nothing to him. Caim spat blood and wiped his mouth with his hand.

"You're a mess," the clone laughed.

Caim said nothing.

He could keep fighting, but he was closer to death than ever. It was like an hourglass that had been turned over. How long would it take for all the sand to fall to the bottom? How many more times could he swing the sword? In any case, he didn't have much time left in this world. As long as he could finish off the enemy before going to hell, he would feel satisfied.

Then...

"Damn. Now what?"

Victoria and Yonah arrived. He should be happy about that, and he was. The guilt didn't completely disappear, but at least they were alive... Right? It couldn't be a trick or a hallucination.

No. It was exactly what it seemed. It had to be.

However...

"Oh, finally you're here," said the clone, his voice pained, vulnerable. "I'm so glad you're okay. I'm sorry for what I did. Help me against this thing."

Caim was so surprised that he reacted later. He shook his head.

"No, I'm the real one! I..."

They looked exactly the same. Well, except for the tentacles now. And he had been inside his head, so there was nothing he could say to the two that the clone couldn't. He couldn't think of a way to convince them beyond any doubt.

Of course, the clone wanted to hurt them, and he never would. Not on purpose. But he didn't have to. The clone just had to convince them. Once they let him get close enough, they would be dead before they realized it.

They couldn't do anything about it. Worse yet, he couldn't do anything. He would have to watch them die brutally just minutes after discovering they had actually survived his atrocious mistake.

Caim swallowed. He channeled all the energy left in his dying body to find the answer. There had to be a way. It wasn't a completely desperate situation. Rested and with a clear head, he might even come up with something surprisingly simple, but of course, he couldn't rest, he couldn't keep a clear head.

How could he prevent it? That monster from deceiving them and tearing them apart before his eyes? How the hell could he prevent it?

"Which one do you think is the real one?" Victoria asked, looking between them as if expecting to find some obvious difference. To take that weight off her shoulders. "What the hell do we do?"

"I don't know. I don't know."

"We've known you for many years," said the clone, gesturing nervously, pretending to be offended by their doubt. "I know your heart tells you it's me. The day everything changed for us, the day when..."

"You killed your own father for me, Victoria," Caim interrupted. "And you, Yonah, also turned your back on your community. You left your home to save my life. Because it was the right thing to do. Since then, I've been..."

"In debt like you."

Caim glared at the clone. He had invaded him, violated him. And now he was using his most precious memories to deceive his loved ones. To lead them to the damn slaughterhouse.

"Damn," said Victoria. "This is... This is impossible. What the hell do we do?"

Yonah had no answer for that. Caim, the real Caim, didn't either.

He had to prove who he was. The last fight was still a fight against himself. Deep down, nothing had changed.

Caim rubbed his eyes. He focused his blurry vision that wanted to succumb to fatigue and blood loss. He still couldn't rest. The fight had only just begun.

Don't Fight Me, Ignite Me (8): FIN