Green blood sprayed from Lelith's torn neck as her hand hung and dangled limply, unable to clamp on the severe injury, the slight leaks now flooding beneath her feet. As her mouth gurgled and spat out more of the strange blood, Oscar had to admit it looked very gruesome and unsettling since the color of her blood was abnormal, eerily inhuman. But that was the extent of his musings, ending without pity. In his opinion, she deserved far worse for her crimes, for her torture of Avril, and for many others. Regrettably, Oscar and the others couldn't take the pound of flesh at their leisure. A quick kill was all that time and effort allowed, or else they'd be the ones choking to death in their own blood.
"Avril…can you hear me?" Oscar stumbled and dropped to his knees. The last remnants of the sapphire armor formed by his shoddy Integration, the visor, fell and clattered on the floor. A faint haze obscured his eyes, but he saw her clearly. Her current state worried him. Her face was pale with a bluish hue on the cheeks, sweat dripping down her fair features. Her weak gasps barely reached his ears even when so close. Cupping her cheeks with trembling hands, Oscar winced at how cold her body had gotten and hugged her close, knowing only this method would provide warmth when all else failed.
A frenzied gargle of blood grunted and wailed. Oscar could hear the desperation in the scream, the undertones of fear and rage trembling in the once-indifferent voice. He looked up at Lelith, who somehow remained standing. She laid a piercing stare at both of them and slashed her scythe down an obvious path toward Avril. A bolt of radiant light brushed between them and landed right on Lelith's neck, unimpeded as it pierced into the fresh wound and out the back. Lelith's blue pupils shuddered, flashes of clarity and dimmings of dullness shifting and fighting for control. Her struggle for life tugged in a hopeless battle against the encroaching death, and it won. The cold indifference muddied into a lifeless dull as Lelith lay on her back, motionless.
"I promised I would be the one to kill you. And now, I have fulfilled it. Now leave my sister for good." Avila groaned and leaned on a large chunk of rubble. Her fingers and hand were covered in blood, probably from the intense exertion of firing her arrows nonstop for the entire fight. A relieved smile crossed her lips. Serit slumped down by her side and rested his short sword to the side, staring at Lelith's corpse with an incredulous look as if he couldn't believe they had done it. Killing a Grade Nine, especially one with an Ancestral Mark, was a feat no one could claim in all of history until now.
Oscar sighed in relief and nodded in gratitude to Avila for her timely save. He felt a shuffling in his arms and turned back to see Avril coming to and flailing in his arms as she inhaled deeply, coughing and spluttering. Oscar comforted her by gently patting her back, his worry increasing as he felt the erratic heartbeat on his palm, the consequences of using Reis in an advanced realm. A single thump sounded, followed by a softer one a slow second later. A Reis user's heartbeat typically hastened to rapid successions, but hers was dangerously slow as if her heart could stop at any moment.
Her breathing calmed and resumed its normal course, and her weak voice tremored with sobs, "Is it over?"
"It is…it's over." Oscar couldn't believe his own words, but the proof existed right there: a cold body lying in a pool of green blood. And more importantly, both of them were alive. That was all that mattered.
"Oscar…I'm sorry." Avril apologized. For what, he did not have a clue. She gripped the hems of his white robes and nuzzled in his chest. "I have been too selfish. She can't look at his eyes."
"Selfish? That is the biggest lie I've ever heard." Oscar rested his chin on her hair, his favorite resting place.
"I…didn't want you to fight. I was fine with you living in the wheelchair for the rest of our lives. A horrible wife she is. To be fine with anything as long as her husband wished for it." Avril coughed. "When you began to regain your former strength and walk, I wasn't able to help. I never tried to truly help you, only staying with you where you were at the time, whether you wanted to fight or stay away. I merely went along. You made the decisions, and I only stayed behind if you needed me."
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"What's wrong with that?" Oscar asked.
"I should have helped you learn to walk. But I was fine with it. I should have overcome my fears first to help you. But you had to find me like this first. I should have done more than stay behind and watch you fight on. She feels terrible. After many years, she believes she's a horrible wife." Avril gripped harder and sobbed on his chest, her hot tears drenching his clothes.
"Maybe you should have. Maybe you shouldn't have." Oscar pinched her chin and tilted her head upward, staring into her golden eyes. She tried to avert her gaze, presumably out of shame, but he held her in place. "And did I do everything right? No. I never asked you for help. I trusted you but never acted on that trust, always believing you would be there behind me but never pushing you to stand side-by-side. Perhaps if I had, you wouldn't have been so afraid of her. Perhaps you could have been more assertive. We're both screw-ups, aren't we?" He smiled and tidied her hair, brushing her bangs out.
"Both of us became haunted by fear after we separated. We made mistakes and focused more on keeping what we had rather than what we could be. But one thing never changed." Oscar lowered his head and met her gaze, kissing her gently. Parting, he said, "I love you. We mess up, maybe hold each other back, but there was a time when we held each other up and fought side-by-side."
Avril giggled and rested on his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his neck in a tight hug. "We're both idiots. She wonders why we're so dumb." She cheered and pumped her fists into the air, regaining the same vigor long lost since the days of Burning Valley to Convecia City. "Let's go! Oscar and Avril will fight on together!"
"No more running. My sweet wife. Revenge or not, I'm not wasting any more time running away and hiding in fear. Let's face our enemies!" Oscar swayed with Avril in his arms.
"That's the spirit I wanted to see. It looks like you're well and truly back, my dear boy." A calm, gentle voice that soothed the ears answered their cheers with a chuckle. Oscar snapped his head toward the source, as did everyone else, and watched Saul, the new one, floating atop Lelith. Saul peeked a pair of dark eyes past his long black hair, tilting his head in clear amusement. Claps echoed as he applauded, "Killing the foremost Grade Nine of our generation is a momentous achievement. Take pride in that, boy."
"Saul, what do you want?" Oscar pulled Avril in closer. He had no Ein left in his core, and Erden and the others were in the same predicament, meaning Saul could kill them all without a single problem. Still, he had a hunch and felt no fear, only glaring as if tearing Saul apart in his mind. No longer did the icy grip of terror grasp his heart, and the memories and touch of Saul's betrayal no longer afflicted his flesh in mental agony.
"Good. Those eyes are what I wanted to see. The young boy who fought with the determination of thousands. You are indeed a worthy rival." Saul grabbed Lelith's corpse and sucked it into a space pocket. Raising the space pocket, he grinned, fiddling with it in his grasp. "A special one, indeed. The Lilisa Family and I aren't so different, but they never had any good successes until her. Thank you, boy. I longed to study the amazing fruition of their efforts."
As Saul turned to leave, Oscar called out to him, "Prepare yourself." The echo of the traitor turned back, raising his brow. Oscar carried on with a smile, "It may not be today, perhaps years from now in Talos. But I will hunt you and end all of you."
"I'll be waiting for it. I can only test the culmination of my experiments on you." Saul gave a gentle smile, but his words veered far from it. "Well, then. Farewell, Terrs and Venelairs. I hope we can meet again on the other side. Until then, stay alive."
As Saul departed and vanished behind a set of stairs leading up, Oscar frowned, cursing his current state. Whatever plans and experiments Saul had for Lelith's corpse could not be good. She was a shard of Metures, and the power of an Ancient in Saul's hands spelled a horrible future. Possibly, Saul might become a greater threat than Lelith. Oscar felt it was a real possibility and clicked his tongue, peering at the half-broken stairs leading down. To combat Saul and the others, he needed a trump card and decided it was time to meet Metures and confront the Ancient of Metal.