Rafflesia still lives.

This is evident by how her breath labored, her wounds bled, and she struggled to stand up with her femur bones jutting out of her thighs. Warm skin against cold concrete floor.

Through a one way mirror the Father and Hydrangea looked through with disappointment. The blue haired girl scoffed.

“I beat her nearly to death and threw her into the jail! I even stabbed her brain! She still lives!”

“Relax, child. Rafflesia was to live another day.” the Father said, taking an authoritative tone. “And another. And another, and another, until the end of this world.”

“What do you mean? You said Rafflesia was to die after Sun was converted into Cain!”

“I never said that. Are you doubting my word?” The Father leaned into Hydrangea’s face.

“N-no! I was just misremembering things!” Hydrangea stammered. “I’m sorry!”

“Apology accepted. Take Rafflesia to the hospital.”

----------------------------------------

Two Flowers stared at each other. One of them was The Strongest. The other was The First Murderer. Two Incarnations of differing Archetypes stared each other down.

One of them stepped back. “Yeah, I think that about calls it.” The smell of sweat and blood filled the air. Gashes and craters could be seen etched into the concrete with martial prowess and brute strength. “I’m going to go take a walk.”

“Where? There is nothing to see in this ruined city.”

“In the wilderness. I want to explore nature on my own terms for the first time in my life.”

Chrysanthemum blinks. “Sure. Alright then. Have it your way.”

Cain bowed and walked outside of the dojo gates. A quick walk led him into an ancient forest, untouched by mankind. At least in his imagination. Reality, signified by an empty and crushed aluminum can wiped away that imagination. He sighed.

“Fuck.” He sat down near an ancient tree, which was probably two hundred years old at the most. Under the canopy and betwixt the roots of the tree, he found peace. Slowly, he closed his eyes.

Where Cain awoke was in a strange land, where dunes made from the hopes and dreams of mankind eternally shifted amongst the threads of fate. Winds blew gently across the ground, bringing with them atomized pieces of dreams that stung neither the eyes or the nose or the ears, but the soul of a being.

There was no heat nor smell nor touch nor taste. It felt like nothing.

Cain looked at his hands. It was made out of blood and iron and hate and anger and pain and grain. He looked away from his hands and began to wander.

He wandered across the desert for days. After 3 days he was no closer to the exit. He tried staying in one place, only to find that the earth rejected him, stabbing daggers into his legs. He had to leave.

For three years did he wander the desert. One day he stopped and called out “Someone! Someone please help me!”

Someone came. A tall and muscled man with glowing white hair that went down to his hips. He wore nothing, for he had no shame. “Hello! My name is Hyperion!”

“You’re...the Greek titan of wisdom!” Cain pointed at the newcomer. “I heard of you! You came somehow!”

“I sure indeed did. Our narrative is dead. But you have remnants of it kept within you.” Hyperion held out his hand. “Come with me, boy, and I’ll show you the depths of this world.”

With no hesitation, Cain grabbed the titan’s hand. He was immediately pulled below the sands and into another, far stranger space. Bubbles of starlight floated in a purple void, dancing amongst tides of nothingness.

Small particles could be seen dancing between the spheres. On a closer look, they appeared to be...fairies? It confused Cain.

“What...is this place?”

“The physical world is a projection of the collective consciousness. What you are seeing is the true reality. Mind begets matter, not the other way around. The realm you were in earlier was a sort of dream.”

“...Explain how this works to me?” Cain was interested in the titan of wisdom’s explanation.

“You see, think of the world as compromised of several ‘layers’.

The physical universe- with its stars, planets, galaxies- is a projection of the collective consciousness, which is divided into many layers. The deeper you go, the more fundamental the workings of the layer are. The deepest layer consists of the highest domain of reality.”

“Why am I here?”

“Because you are the light to destroy the Father. I have given you a taste of knowledge. It is time for you to use it to its fullest extent. Now go, and save the world.”

----------------------------------------

He awoke below the tree, standing up with a renewed haste. He grabbed a branch from the ground and made his way back to the city.

----------------------------------------

A girl sat in a dumpyard.

Alone and broken.

Smiling.

Not out of joy.

But out of spite. In a world of hatred and anger, she would be the shining star that raised above all. Even as her muscles ached. Even as her bones creaked. Even as her eye dangled.

Her efforts yielded fruit- in the form of a familiar face.

“...Cain?”

----------------------------------------

The Father had a smile on his face. Even as he was scattered across the ground, becoming one with the environment. Cain had murdered- but he would not stay Cain for longer. He knew it within his bones.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Cain, fist bloody, stood proud above his defeated foe. He looked over to Rafflesia. By now, her wounds had mostly healed.

“Rafflesia, other than the dumpyard, what is the last place you remember being in?”

“...The headquarter basement. It was remodeled after being destroyed. I was kept in the jail there…after being beaten by Hydrangea.”

Cain grit his teeth. “Time to show her what’s what. Grab my hand, you’re coming with me.” He held out his hand, but Rafflesia did not take it.

“No. I am going to defeat her myself.” she said with a stern tone, unlike her. “My problems. My solutions. You may watch.”

“She almost killed you the last time! What makes you think you can beat her this time?”

“A gut feeling.”

Cain stared with an intensity that was matched by no one but Rafflesia. For but a few moments.

Then he broke into laughter. “Oh, okay, okay. You can go ahead. I can’t stop ya.”

Rafflesia rushed at breakneck speeds down the path. Cain followed.

The entrance to the underground headquarters was guarded by four men with long rifles. Affixed to them were bayonets. Were it any other foe they stared down, they would stand and fight. But when they saw the pink haired girl and the menacing black haired man, they knew to do so would mean certain death without honor.

With not a single word, they stepped aside, letting the two pass.

Down a long set of stairs, and through two massive gates. That was what it took to get to the lobby. Once they did, they wanted to leave.

Girls were here. They had multi colored hair, strange weapons in their hand, the signature outfit, and were very, very dead. Decapitated, dismembered, disemboweled, flayed, burnt, smashed, cut. Their remains littered the floor like trash. Thrown away into the pits of history. The only thing left of them other than their bodies was the smell of blood.

Rafflesia joined them. Not dead, of course, but merely unconscious. Cain was the unlucky one- he was conscious enough to bare it. One question wormed through his brain and panged his heart.

Where is Cornflower? He looked amongst the pile of bodies. He hoped he wouldn’t find her. Even seeing her face smashed wouldn’t relieve him of that possibility- he could recognize her by her body type. Where? Where? Where?

“Looking for someone?”

That voice.

That voice was the one he was looking for. On the stairs, holding a katana in her hands. Cornflower.

“You’re a fake! You killed the real Cornflower and replaced her!” Cain shouted, an accusatory finger at the girl. His lover. “It has to be! It has to be! The real Cornflower died here! I counted over ninety-seven corpses!”

“What’s one-hundred-and-one minus five?”

Oh.

It was that obvious.

“...Chrysanthemum, Hydrangea, Rafflesia, you and me. We’re the only Flowers left.” Cain walked up to Cornflower. “What happened?”

“Phase 3 has begun. Getting splattered was Father’s plan. The Flowers were killed before this to make way for the Golden Path.”

“...the Golden Path? What do you mean?”

“At the top of reality is the Throne,” she explained as if reciting this from memory. “and it is the ultimate Archetype- the Archetype of Archetypes of Archetypes...ad infinitum. It is the ultimate authority. Whoever sits on the Throne- whether that be the Devil, God, or even lowly man- owns the world.”

“What prevents someone from getting to the Throne?”

“The Throne is in a place beyond places. It actually doesn’t have an existence or position anywhere. It’s everywhere and nowhere.”

“The Golden Path- is that a path to the Throne?”

“Yes. It solidifies the Throne and makes it accessible in one place. But it isn’t a path you can clear with bombs or shovels or anything. It needs souls. One hundred and one souls to be complete.”

“Why so...little?” A thought. That’s how many Flowers there are.

“Because Flower souls have something a little special to them. They are effectively the incarnation of a Symbol that has no place in a secular narrative, but due to the lowered population of humanity that narrative was eroded. They are impossibilities.”

“And driving a path to the Throne is an impossibility…”

“Yes.” Cornflower eyed the unconscious Rafflesia, before returning her gaze to Cain. “Five live. To be complete, the Golden Path must have all one hundred and one souls. As long as those five live, the Golden Path will be half-formed.”

“...what do you mean by that?” A useless question. Cain knew what she meant. He just didn’t want to accept it.

He saw a flash in Cornflower’s eyes- and then found himself several meters backwards. Was he shoved? Telepathically moved? Blood trickled from his nose down his lips.

He hadn’t been shoved. He had dodged. On Cornflower’s gleaming blade was a single drop of red blood, ruining the perfectly spotless blade.

“Y-you can’t…you can’t be…” He dodged a thrust to his head, to his torso, to his belly. Each dodge was imperfect- or should it be said that Cornflower was too fast, for nicks were accumulating on his body rapidly. Dodge. Dodge. Dodge. Nick. Nick. Nick.

He could have fought back, using his bare hands. But that would come with the risk of striking his only love- Akiko. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t move a single strand of muscle towards doing so.

“Fight! Fight like a man!” Cornflower’s blows grew faster. Less sloppy. She was holding back too, though not as much as Cain. Her blade cut deep, spilling green liquid that mixed with the red of the countless corpses below, becoming a sickly yellow-

Another thought. This time, far more gruesome.

“You...you...killed those Flowers, didn’t you!”

“Yes. I had to. For the Father.”

Something within him broke. A wild beast set free from its chains. That described him perfectly. With one punch, he smashed her into the blood-covered ground and shook the entire building. Then he grabbed her and threw her into the ceiling. She still tried to grip and swing her katana- until he kicked her through meters and meters of dirt.

He shouted. He didn’t know what he shouted. He didn’t care. The only thing he cared about as he plowed through the dirt after her was her destruction. Her punishment for killing those innocent girls. He unleashed blow after blow. Kick, punch, kick, punch, punch, punch, kick. Through the flurry he saw something. Then he felt a immense and overwhelming pain in his crotch. He had no choice but to fall to the ground, covering it.

She...she hit me in the crotch.

“Oh, you gained some balls. Enough so that I just had to hit them.” She cackled, covered in blood and bruises.

This…

This is not the person I knew.

Come back.

Come back, Akiko.

“Oh ho ho! What’s wrong? You’re scared of the real me? Come on! Don’t be shy! Come and fight!”

“Raarh!” He threw another punch that never landed. His arm, neatly severed at the elbow, fell to the ground with a plop.

“Dumbass! You’re fighting a sword user with your bare hands! Of course this would happen to you! You lose a few braincells when you transformed into a Flower?”

Cain looked at his severed arm. He felt pain. A lot of it. But more than that- he knew what he had to do. Without hesitation, he picked up his arm.

“I’m a polearm user.” He grunted. From his bleeding stump he began to grow a new arm. First, bone. Then, muscles and ligaments. Finally, the skin. This process was simple, but it was painful- moreso than actually losing the arm.

He did not care. He had to start on step 2- starting with stripping the flesh from the arm in one swift motion, leaving nothing but the exposed bones.

“Oh...what are you doing?”

He didn’t answer. He worked his lifeforce into the cellular matrix, molding it into something better- a long glaive.

“All done.” With incredible speed, he swung. Cornflower’s katana barely moved fast enough to block it, and only just- it cut into her ear. Capitalizing onto this, he shifted the blade upwards and pulled back. With how the blade grinded against her face, he figured out that he cut to the bone.

The girl’s retaliation was to meet him with a flurry of blows. He responded in kind. The clashes of their weapons- bone against metal- shook the earth. They struck faster than lightning and harder than missiles. Neither of them gave in. Neither of them held back.

Cain had the longer weapon. But Cornflower was faster. He went for a jab- and she ducked underneath and tried to stab his belly. He pulled back his polearm and stabbed her shoulder. Then he flung her away.

None of their attacks had been truly lethal to those of a Flower. Both of them knew.

“Coward! Go for the head!”

“No.”

“Why? Why not?”

“Because…” He didn’t want to say it. Not now. Not here. At the same time, he might never get the same chance.

“Because what? Speak now! We will never see each other again! Unless you plan to meet me in the afterlife! Speak! Speak! Speak!”

“Because I love you!”

The girl lowered her guard. Were Cain to be heartless, he would have struck, but he wasn’t. In his heart he found only love for his girl.

A tear dropped from Cornflower’s eye and splashed onto the ground.

“You...you fucking dumbass...why...why would you tell me this now? When everything’s about to go to shit? Why?”

“...Does a man need a reason to declare his love for his woman?”

“…” Cornflower drops to the ground and begins sobbing. “All of the blood I spilled...all of the lives I ended...and a single sentence brings me this low. Fuck. I really am hopeless.”

Cain takes one step forward. Another. Another, and another, but he stops just a few steps away from the girl.

Something above. Something had groaned and wailed, leaving its mark on existence- and left this- a massive hole in the sky. It was black. Black as the night sky during a new moon. Black as the inside of one’s eyelids. It was bigger than the sun.

It had to be...it had to be the Golden Path.

Cornflower cackled. “Hehehehe...it’s incomplete...of course. But it’s still good enough to go through. Just not enough to be safe.”

“...What is the Father going to do with this?”

“He never told me what he would do after the Golden Path would summon. Since he’s dead, I figured his ghost would travel through it.”

Had this been saner times, he would have called that a silly myth.

These were not sane times.

“Let’s...let’s just go. As long as the survivors keep on living, the Golden Path will never open.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” To the sky, they turned. They met not a thing, but a being- a girl, pale blonde in hair and red in eye and blade.

“My name is Chrysanthemum. I am death. I am fury. I am vengeance. For the Father has commanded me to act on his word. And his word is violence.”

Cornflower’s head fell off, rolling across the ground empty-eyed. Cain had the reflexes and instinct to block another of her strokes with his weapon, but not the strength to withstand her atom-cutting blow. It cleaved through his glaive and into his skull. He fell to the ground at the same time Cornflower’s body did.

Oh…

so…

this is how it ends.

Got it.

His life flashed before his eyes. Toddlerhood. Childhood. Middle school. High school. The aliens. Cornflower. Everything, all at once, as if he was there again.

I’m happy with how everything went.

Those were the thoughts of a dying man. Above the two, Chrysanthemum stood, alone. The Strongest Flower, to be unmatched by anyone living or dead. She directed her gaze towards the sky and began to fly upwards- up towards the Golden Path.

In the black abyss she found nothing. It smelled like nothing. Tasted like nothing. No sound or sensation. It was as if she had found herself in some sort of void. Of course, this was to be expected.

With more souls, the Golden Path was a little closer to finishing. Hydrangea would have committed suicide out of honor, and Rafflesia was most likely dead already, buried in the dirt. All there was left to do was suicide. A coward’s way for most. But for her, it was written in stone.

No bullet could hit her, let alone harm her.

No missile could hit true.

No blade could rend her flesh.

No poison could taint her blood.

No lies may deceive her.

From her sacred path, there was no deviation. No turning back. This was it. This was the en-

Something touched her. She looked backwards.

There, smiling at her, was Rafflesia.