A month had passed since the Hexa faced off against the young woman who possessed the King's Eyes. It had ended in catastrophe, the mission status undefined. Jakaan's father seemed optimistic.

As he moved his small frame through the rows of flowers in the Royal Keep's garden, running his fingers through soft petals, Jakaan hoped his father was wrong. He hoped the girl lived and left Stratum behind. It was possible to avoid any further damage that way. Inu had explained it to him before he left.

But it didn't seem likely. Inu had seemingly given up and left the problem with the King's Eyes behind. Jakaan hadn't believed it at first. He had always thought of Inu as a man with an inhumanly unshakable will. Once he decided what was right, he would follow through. Always. No matter what.

This time, however, there was no word of Inu. Had it finally gotten too much?

Jakaan breathed in the fresh and sweet scent of flowers as he looked sadly at the purple tulip that his fingers caressed. 'Will I never see him again?'

Could Inu just abandon him?

"My Prince!" a voice rang out from behind. Jakaan turned around to see the butler. "The King requests your presence. You must come at once."

"Yes, I'll b—" Jakaan interrupted himself as his voice cracked. He cleared his throat with an embarrassed cough and thanked the Gods that his father wasn't there to see it. "I'll be there."

He then looked to the side before calculating a path before getting to action. He snapped his head up and blinked his eyes with force. When he opened them again, he floated in the midst of the cold winds above the keep. With a cool head, he looked for the right path before he could start his fall and blinked again. Many blinks later, he appeared in the King's hall.

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

His head spun, but he didn't let it show, greeting his father with respect and walking to his side with careful steps.

When he stood beside his father, he wrapped his hands tightly behind his back in a formal manner and assumed a fitting posture, fixing his gaze on the door.

He wasn't told what it was about, but he was sure it was important.

The tall, ornamented doors to the hall opened, and in walked Inu Aomon with a look so grim he was nigh unrecognizable.

***

Autumn had come and the end was near. The leaves grew yellow and fell to their deaths. All so that they could float along with Liv in a small turquoise pond.

The water was cold. Growing only colder with time. It tingled her bare skin, but she stayed in purely of her own accord. The shuddering breaths felt somehow rejuvenating.

Her visions had intensified. She hadn't had as many of them after meeting Inu, but now she was back to the same. Nothing had changed really. It was where all her long-ago-made decisions had brought her. Nothing else. It was to embrace or resent. She had made her choice.

When her lungs emptied and she started to sink, she sucked in the air to keep afloat. After she felt herself suffocating, she exhaled out. So repeated the cycle.

But what was Inu's fate?

Liv took a slow breath.

Inu had survived the Shadow once, but had he managed to do it once again? Was he looking for her? Did she want him to?

Liv gave a quick breath.

At the end of the day, Inu wasn't a man who deserved to die. But so was Fabian until Hakro took his heart.

Liv no longer breathed. She let the water take her. In its suffocating embrace, she could feel the cold of the deep at her back before it took her world completely. But having seen a darkness so much more vast, she sunk unfazed.

She extended her body open, for nothing in nature could grasp her anymore. The pain and loss that was to be forgotten. Her world would end soon. She knew it. All that remained was one last rain. Her only mission was to follow her instincts.

She could do that much, even as the hands of corpses tried to pull her down. The strongest would reign.

To fear was pointless. The suffering was past. Only the reckoning remained.