"There was... I... m— my... people," Inu could only mumble as he lowered his gaze and hung his head. The king urged him on and he felt the entire world descend on him, wrapping around him and squeezing his soul. With his eyes wide, staring at the ground with droplets of blood from his lower lip, he could still see his former allies impaled in a field. He wondered how he hadn't ended it there. Not just because of the pain. But what it meant for someone such as him to breathe the same air as the pure-hearted.

The king thought he would help. That he would reinforce his point with the greatest tragedy he'd had to bear his whole life. All to save more lives. More. Lives. Aomon. AOMON.

Voices got louder in his ears, but he wasn't sure if anyone was even speaking. Then his face twitched and he jerked his neck to the side before swallowing what felt like his own tongue before he could finally knock the sound out of his chest. And from a deep grumble grew a roar, "I am not a hero!" He swallowed again and seethed, his shoulders rising and falling. Then her raised his head if only so that everybody could see his ferocious eyes. "I am NOT a HERO! Not a saint. Not anything. I am nothing but a husk. A husk of— of— of— of this purpose. This curse that I placed on myself," Inu spoke vehemently and with haste, for every single one of those words was worth a thousand of the lesser words he had spouted to those who saw him as a savior. "I cannot count the times I wished, I hoped for someone to end my misery." He brought his hands up and clawed at his face to rip off the illusory mask and the king's stoic act broke.

The man was as filled with horror as anyone and was no longer able to rely on his Intra to cover it up. The king's Mind was gone. Now he only shivered on his throne, no longer seeing any way out. Now that all he saw was horror, his jaw shook like any man's.

Inu shifted his sharpened gaze from him to the soldiers, Liv, Jakaan and Claude and finally let it go. No more. This was his last stand and after he fell by Liv's hand, she would decide. His burden had crushed him at last. It only remained to spread the remains.

"People know me as a savior of the common people. They know me, for I came to the rescue of the few refugees after the extermination effort had concluded. But I was the one who made those people refugees," Inu's face twisted in disgust of himself as he spoke while wanting to rip his skin off. But even if he wanted to, the fact was that he couldn't. His bottom lips could make itself bleed, but a dagger couldn't make a scratch. "I fought for a year against the Eastern Purge. During that time, I became acquainted with soldiers, ate at their houses, and taught their children. Then I watched as their towns were exterminated one by one. Houses collapsed, bodies burned, toys trampled. And as the war went on, more lives joined and I watched as the other side suffered much like we did. I just wanted it to end. For the remaining lives to be spared. I wanted everybody to exist in a harmony I thought I knew, but there was no possibility of a conclusion until someone was entirely wiped out... So I did it!"

He looked at everyone with wide eyes, ready to take in their judging gazes. Ready to take their loathing that he had made for himself and choked on from sunrise until sunfall for thousands of repeats.

Again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again.

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But they all just watched, their eyes so regular. So terribly regular. With no mind-twisting hatred or disgust.

"I betrayed them!" Inu shrieked, the sound grating in his throat. He looked at Liv and despaired at her eyes. "Just like I betrayed you. I killed my friends! Every single one." His voice cracked and he shook his head. "And it didn't even end. The soldiers weren't enough." Tears built and without even a hint of control, he let the stream. He sniffed and took a step towards Liv. Jakaan tried to grasp his arm, but fell short and let his hand close on air. "They exterminated everyone who believed in new gods. Even those who didn't. There was no end." As he walked to Liv, who started to seem more like an immovable giant the closer he got, his voice started to disappear. "Oh God," he said as he fell to his knees before her, his downcast gaze a blurry mess, "I never wanted any of this." He shook his head weakly as tears fell and disappeared into the unforgiving slumber stone.

Then Liv's hand descended on his shoulder. "Look at me," her voice echoed and he obeyed. Then his mind was gone and next he stood back beside to king. He had been hypnotized without even hearing a word. Liv truly had changed. But how so much?

The king glanced at Inu's utter confusion and trembled, his agitation at its peak. Then both of their gazes were drawn to Liv.

"You have failed, King of Stratum. Your philosophy of the many has proved self-serving after all. So let us not be fools this once," she said and gave a faint smile of satisfaction as she raised her arms to her sides in a dramatic display. "I came here to do one thing—the one thing Inu regrets he never truly did: fight. Whatever your or my mind says doesn't matter when we exist in a world where some pay for what others don't. This world serves itself as does everything in it. We care for those we do and we fight for our hearts. That is the nature of all humans be it peasant, king, or me," she put pressure on the words as she brought her hands closer together. It felt like she was squeezing the space and everything in it into a box that could fit in her hands. Nobody even breathed. "Inu regrets because he chose the mind in a matter that is fundamentally inappropriate for it. The right thing to do is something decided by instincts. And I... am an animal of pure instinct." She made the triangle, her eye enclosed inside. Then it snapped into a vertical position, became something separate for her and darkness spread.

Some soldiers began to weep, Claude's legs almost gave out, Jakaan holding her up with tears in his eyes. Inu's eyes fluttered between closed and open. Between life and death. It would've been useless to scream when the sound was sucked into the Empt with a vacuum noise.

Inu looked into the utter darkness, and for a moment, he saw himself in it. Then Liv was gone. Inu looked to the throne. The king was still there. She had left him to wait along with everyone else, taking only herself into the Empt.

In an instant, the soldiers in the King's Guard went out of control in the absence of Liv and rushed to the bunker's exit. Noise filled Inu's empty head. Then it hit. Too soon. Impossibly soon. Except. Except if Liv had attracted it close to the capital with hypnosis beforehand to shorten the time. Of course, she had. The whole thing was really her last stand.

Inu could somehow tell apart the sounds of pure, unfiltered annihilation at the hands of the Shadow of Quinheart outside, but it was still a shock when it hit the bunker. His ears were paralyzed by the deafening sound, and for a second, the flames on the ceiling flickered in and out of existence.

Inu's attention, however, was swallowed up by the king's violent jerk forward as a torso-sized piece of shrapnel tore through him. His life disappeared in a second, and he was left there, sitting on his throne as his head went loose and his mouth went open only for blood to stream out.

The king was dead.