“Your eyes are red…” Rohan muttered. “Are you still… you?”

Victor stared at Rohan, into the upturned eyebrows and worry playing about his lips.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Victor muttered. The rage had begun to fade. The pain biting at his limbs was beginning to abate, leaving Victor with a cold feeling of emptiness. “I am the same person I’ve always been!”

“Okay...that’s good to know,” Rohan said, relinquishing his hold on Victor’s arm and taking a step back. “But you were using the demon’s power, right?”

Victor looked away. “What do you mean?”

“To do what you did there. To throw the roof off. To kill those demons,” Rohan said. “That’s not something that you could do with your powers, right?”

Victor shrugged and crossed his arms. “Well, it appears as though you are not as idiotic as I had otherwise expected! Yes! Yes, Rohan! This is why I needed to form a contract with this evil demon from the depths! So I could have access to powers beyond your comprehension!”

Rohan’s eyes wandered over Victor’s face, a note of sadness written into his features. “But you’ll die as a result of this, you know?”

Victor snorted. “Not immediately. I’ll be tortured for the remainder of my lifespan, and then I’ll die. Which, if you think about it, is no different than anyone else? But he also might choose to just permanently claim my body and erase my consciousness, but...”

“But if you overuse your powers, you’ll die even before you’ll even be able to be used as a feeding slave.”

“I will not,” Victor snapped, pointing at Rohan with a dramatic finger. “I will not die! I will endure it all so that I can become that which I have always wanted!”

Rohan sighed. “And what would that be?”

“The greatest and most powerful daemonics practitioner that the world has ever seen!”

“Yeah...that’s your goal, isn’t it? You’re a kooky bastard,” Rohan muttered. A note of panic suddenly appeared on his face. “Marquitta! Where’s Marquitta?”

The two practitioners then spent the next ten minutes frantically digging through the rubble, desperately looking for Marquitta.

“Must be around here somewhere...Oh god, what if I actually killed her?”

“You did not kill her! You put your best efforts into saving her!”

“I know, but like, what if…?”

“What are we looking for?” Marquitta asked.

“Good that you’re here” Victor muttered, displacing a rather large chunk of debris. “We need to find --”

Victor whipped around suddenly to behold Marquitta, who donned a curious expression and an innocent smile.

“Marquitta!” Rohan exclaimed, placing a hand against his face in a gesture of a relief. “Thank God. I was worried you got trapped beneath the rubble…”

“I am probably the most proficient graverics practitioner in the entire city, maybe even state,” Marquitta said, crossing her legs. “I just encircled myself in an armor of gravi.I was worried that you two were crushed by debris. What has happened to those sad little men splayed out on the streets?”

Rohan opened his mouth to respond, but Victor quickly interjected, “One of their weapons malfunctioned and blew them all to hell. We were lucky because when the weapon exploded, it created a path for us to escape before everything fell.”

Marquitta nodded, an impressed look on her face. “Wow, you are a bunch of lucky guys then, huh?”

“I would say so, Miss Marquitta,” Victor said with a smile.

“I think it is time for me to bring you all back to the Cupcakes Inc safehouse,” Marquitta said. “We have to leave quickly before the people who sent those men come and see what happened to them.”

“I think I’ll go back to the church,” Victor said. “I left poor Madeline all by herself. But Madeline the Cruel needs her sleep…”

Marquitta bit her lip. “I really do suggest that we make our way over to the safehouse.”

A warning bell sounded in Victor’s head, but Rohan seemed to detect it too.

“What are you talking about?” Rohan muttered, narrowing his eyes. “Victor isn’t part of Cupcakes Inc! We shouldn’t force him into --”

Marquitta’s eyes adopted a hint of urgency. “I really think we should get both of you to the safehouse.”

Without warning, Victor suddenly extended his hand, causing a large boulder to come

careening towards him. He then leapt onto it, steadying himself until he could maintain his balance, and shot into the sky.

“Victor, wait!” Marquitta exclaimed, producing a large, purple cube of mass and following him into the sky, stumbling to mount it as it ascended. “Victor…”

Seer City was on fire. He could see it from the towering height he achieved as he rose. During the chaos of the fight, he was blinded to the most obvious sensations. Like the smell of burning, which rode gently on the wind. Victor could now hear the screams, faint but present -- see the smoke coiling into the rising sun. The roads snaking through the city, surrounding Monument Park, were splattered with bodies.

Victor forced the boulder forward and he shot toward the center of the city, where the massacre commenced.

Suddenly, Taro’s faint outline appeared beside Victor.

“Where do you think you are going?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Where do you think?” Victor snapped, glowering at him. “I’m going to destroy the demons invading my city!”

“What’s the point of that?” Taro said, his voice almost a whine. “You wanted to destroy the city anyway. Why does it matter if someone else did it first?”

“What a delightful surprise. You managed to comprehend the reason for my action before I could even say it!”

Taro drifted in front of Victor and said, “You can’t do anything to stop this.”

“What do you mean?” Victor snapped. “I shall do nothing at all! It is you who will end this massacre.”

Taro blinked at Victor. “Me? What on Earth are you talking about?”

“Your powers,” Victor insisted. “I’ll use them again.”

“No you won’t,” Taro snapped, aghast. “Do you realize that the power you would need to defeat these demons would destroy your body? I cannot, by myself, even put a dent into a team of twenty demons.”

“But I can. I can do it,” Victor snapped. “I’ll be using my own power in conjunction with yours! There shall be no problem here at all.”

“Victor, you're not thinking rationally. Yes, we will be more powerful with our combined strength. Of course. But again, we are dealing with twenty demons under the guidance of a Devil’s Fragment. Our powers are not enough to stop them.”

“I do not care.”

“You’re making Marquitta chase after you too. You don’t want her to worry, do you?”

Victor glared at Taro. “She knows why I need to do this.”

“Interfering with the Annihilation process will get you in trouble with the law,” Taro said, fighting for excuses. “Then, you will be a criminal and you won’t be able to move around freely anymore. You might even go to prison!”

Victor shot a confused look at Taro. “I’m more likely to get killed than go to prison, but thank you for thinking of my legal standing. Besides, I want to be a criminal! If things had gone according to plan, I would already be a wanted man…”

“But you are engaging in a heroic act!” Taro exclaimed. “Listen to yourself. You are being a hero! Isn’t that the exact opposite of what you want? You want to not be a hero, right?”

As the center of Seer City drew closer, the tragedy unfolding came into clearer view.

“I am the one who will destroy this city! I cannot let someone upstage me.”

Taro glared at Victor. A lightbulb seemed to suddenly go off in his head. “I am supposed to turn you into a supervillain, correct?”

“Yes, that’s what I contracted you to do.”

“What you’re doing now goes against that,” Taro said. “If you succeed, you will be lauded as a hero.”

Victor shot him a look and then looked away. “No I won’t.”

“Yes you will. So, I have every legal right to stop you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re about to find out.”

Suddenly, Taro vanished. Victor was suddenly filled with a strange sensation of lightheadedness. The world began to fall away, fading from view as if he was drifting into a dream. And suddenly, his vision went black, and his consciousness faded away.

Taro was gliding on the rock, soaring through the sky, ponytail flailing behind him in the wind. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the cool, damp night air. The wind tickled his skin, gliding across his skin. Elation filled his body -- the emotion, once colorless and flat, bloomed into a spectrum of brightness and joy. He had forgotten what it felt like. To have a body.

Despite longing to continue soaring through the air, to feel the wind tempt his skin. But, he had a job to do.

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Taro glided to a stop in the sky, sat down on the rock, and turned to face Marquitta, who was soaring toward him from a distance. Once she arrived, decelerating enough to face Taro, her expression was hard.

“Your eyes are red,” Marquitta commented. “So, you have taken over then, Taro?”

“I have,” Taro said, leaning back and taking another deep breath. “He refused to return. According to the contract, I have an obligation to stop him from falling into harm if I can.”

Marquitta’s eyes were cold. “That is true. I was waiting for you to stop him. You were taking your sweet time. If you had waited a minute longer, you would have violated your contract. You are aware of this, yes?”

“I am aware,” Taro said, narrowing his eyes. “Of course I’m aware. There’s no need for you to doubt me.”

“If you had let him try to defend the city,” Marquitta said, “then he would have retrieved some of his memories.”

“And we can’t have that, right?” Taro said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t understand you humans at all. But here I am, trapped in this boy, and there’s nothing I can do until the contract is fulfilled, right?”

“Until the contract is fulfilled,” Marquitta repeated stiffly.

Taro glanced toward the ground. He noticed a moving speck dashing toward them -- probably Rohan. “Why do you dislike me?”

Marquitta blinked. “What do you mean? It’s obviously because you’re going to claim him as your feeding slave. You are going to take away his life.”

“Is that unfair of me?” Taro snapped. “I didn’t ask to be roped into this contract. I was just perfectly happy in my job as a university professor in Blackheim. I wanted nothing to do with this Practitioner and Parasite nonsense. I wanted no part in any of this at all!”

Marquitta sighed. “Why could you not just help him out of the goodness of your heart?”

“I have no reason to!” Taro exclaimed. “You all treat me poorly anyway. You act as if I am your slave or - or as if I personally murdered everyone you hold dear.”

“I hold him dear,” Marquitta said. “And you are going to take him away from me.”

Taro glared at her. “That is none of my concern! I am sorry, but you think I would risk my existence, my well being, my everything merely for your amusement? Do you take me for a slave or something? You can’t even blame me for this. I need something in return. I need this suffering to be worth it.”

Marquitta fidgeted with her hands. “You are cruel. But I cannot expect anything more from you, can I?”

Taro seemed thoroughly displeased with this line of conversation. “You’re the cruel one. Whatever. I’m here to do what I’m supposed to do. Anything else doesn’t matter.”

“Let’s go down now,” Marquitta said, pointing toward the ground.

To reduce the risk of infuriating Marquitta further, Taro pointed the rock toward the ground. It carried him gently to the surface of the Earth, where he dismounted.

Rohan made it to Taro and Marquitta just in time for them to arrive to the ground. Rohan, panting, looked up at Taro and exclaimed, “Victor, you --”

“Not Victor,” Taro said, pointing at his eyes.

Rohan’s expression soured and he looked away. “Of course. That idiot would never back down from a chance to make himself shine. You had to force him to dismount, right?”

“That’s right,” Taro said. “It seemed to be contractually acceptable to do so in this situation. I don’t know what could have been done if it wasn’t.”

“I would have to shoot him from the sky,” Rohan muttered, covering his face with a hand. When he dropped it, he said, “You’re going to have to keep hijacking his body until we can get somewhere safe. You can do that, right?”

Taro nodded.

“I’m sure you prefer to be in a body of your own anyway.” Rohan turned to Marquitta. “You need to go, right?”

A quality of sadness tinted Marquitta’s expression. “Yes, I unfortunately must.”

Rohan pat Marquitta’s shoulder as he turned around. “Stay safe over there, okay? I don’t want to lose you yet.”

A glint of mischief danced in her eyes. “Oh, you must know that I intend to stick around for a little bit longer.”

Rohan nodded and crossed his arms. “I can’t believe they’re annihilating Seer City. I thought they only targeted slums.”

Marquitta shook her head. “The Parasite is getting more greedy. You have to realize that she is losing restraint. Soon, she will not hold back. She will feed until she dies.”

Rohan nodded. “We’re running out of t-”

His eyes suddenly widened. Grabbing Marquitta by the jacket, he exclaimed, “Madeline! Oh, fuck, Madeline is still in there! She’s still in Seer City! We need to get her...We need…”

Marquitta gently patted Rohan’s head. “Do not worry, my darling. I will retrieve her.”

“Oh no, she’s definitely dead,” Rohan exclaimed, sinking to the floor, eyes wide with panic. “Oh God. There’s no way she’s going to survive that. Oh no…”

“Give her some credit,” Marquitta said. “She is an extremely powerful practitioner herself. She also has a very strong sense of self-preservation, you know.”

Rohan let his arms drop to his sides, though he refused to rise to his feet. “Yes...Yes she is. But...But it’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough.”

“She survived the Total Annihilation, did she not?” Marquitta said with a smile. “She is more than capable of hiding away or running away. You know she will do anything to survive.”

Rohan nodded slowly, though tears were brimming in his eyes. “Just go...Marquitta, just go and save her, okay?”

“You should seek shelter in the Piss Hospital in Piss City. That is where Prince and Marina are recovering. You may even find Kelly there.”

“Piss City...that’s not far from here,” Rohan said, nodding slowly. “I’ll go there. You’ll come there after you’re done, right? After you’ve saved Madeline?”

“Yes,” Marquitta said. “I promise I will bring her back safely.”

Rohan nodded, though he seemed hesitant to believe her. “Okay. Well, I guess I’ll get going now.”

Marquitta turned to Taro, who stood awkwardly a few feet away from the two. “You will ensure that Rohan is safe, correct?”

“Of course I will,” Taro said. “I wouldn’t think to do anything to hurt him.”

“Glad you understand where your duty lies,” Marquitta said.

Under his breath, Taro muttered, “yet.”

“What was that?”

“I said I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. Yet.”

“You are a heartless pig,” Marquitta snapped as she whipped around and stormed off toward the falling Seer City.

Rohan didn’t seem to comprehend Taro’s unnerving words. He just sat on the floor, eyes wide with terror.

“It’s time for us to go,” Taro muttered, approaching him. “To the Piss Hospital.”

Rohan nodded and rose to his feet, limbs trembling. “You think Madeline will be alright?”

Taro stared at Rohan, bewildered. He couldn’t understand the vulnerability in Rohan’s voice -- the pleading quality of his eyes. “I...am sure of it.”

“Okay,” Rohan said, grabbing a hold of Taro’s jacket. “We can start heading back now.”

Taro stared at Rohan. “Are you...alright?”

Lightning zapped through Rohan’s eyes. “Of course I’m alright! Damn it, why would you think otherwise? Are you stupid or something?”

That was a more familiar tone. The tension lifted from Taro’s shoulders.

“Why do you have to be so rude?” Taro snapped, looking away. “I am only here to help you.”

Rohan nodded. “I know that.”

Taro fell silent for a moment. Then, he squinted ahead and said. “There is something I need to tell you.”

Rohan backed away, detecting the urgency in Taro’s voice. “What?”

“It’s about Victor.”

“Victor?” Rohan blinked, as if momentarily confused as to why Victor was referring to himself in third person. Then, he shook his head as he was reminded of who stood before him. “Right, Victor. What about him?”

A note of anxiety touched Taro’s eyes. “Glasses.”

“What?”

“Victor needs glasses.”

Rohan blinked stupidly at Taro, who stared ahead with pronounced anguish.

“What are you talking about?” Rohan didn’t seem to be able to comprehend the ridiculous statement.

“He just walks around like this. He’s not even wearing contacts,” Taro whispered, sounding close to tears. “Everything is blurry as shit. I can’t even properly make out your face from this distance.”

“Are you messing with me?” Rohan snapped. “This is what you made me get worried about?”

“I don’t understand this idiot at all,” Taro said. “He really can hardly see anything...How does he function? Everything is just so unclear.”

Once the original shock of being mislead by the demon wore off, Rohan was able to marvel at the incredulity of the statement. Rohan had no idea that Victor needed to wear glasses.

“Like, are you sure this isn’t just some compatibility issue between you and this body? I mean, I really doubt that Victor genuinely would refuse to wear glasses if he needed them.”

“I’m telling you what I see,” Taro snapped. “If you don’t believe me, fine! These days nobody does, since I’m a demon and all!”

“You are so irritating,” Rohan said, whirling around. “We have a long way to go to the hospital. So we should just get going.”

“If I give you a ride on a rock using my telekinetic abilities, then will you please give Victor an eye exam and subsequent glasses?”

It took only a few moments for Taro to find a soft, but firm patch of earth to turn into a platform. To avoid the aerial traffic guards, they decided to keep fairly low to the ground, ducking between the treetops. They had been lucky when Victor recklessly pelted off into the sky -- the City Guard could have caught him and, since he lived in Seer City, could have turned him into a sacrifice. After all, during an Annihilation, there should be no survivors.

Which explains Rohan’s terrified reaction to the realization that Madeline was still stuck inside the city limits. In most circumstances, no human can cross the barrier outside of the city. The Annihilation would go on, and on, until not a single soul was detected amongst the rubble.

Which is one of the reasons why Rohan, Marquitta, and Taro were so desperate to prevent Victor from entering the city limits. There were always very few survivors of such a bloodbath, and they all had special circumstances. Perhaps they were extremely skilled practitioners, perhaps they had a natural immunity to the entrapment spell, perhaps their brain activity was so weak that they were undetected.

Rohan could only hope that Marquitta would be able to retrieve Madeline. But, there was no guarantee that Madeline would escape with her life.

Marquitta would, at least. Rohan could guarantee that much. But that wasn’t the problem.

“What are you doing?” Taro said as Rohan leaned his head on his shoulder as they soared through the trees.

“Shut up,” Rohan muttered.

“Is this the kind of relationship you have with Victor?” Taro asked, incredulous. “You just are casually affectionate like this?”

Rohan turned red, but did not remove his head from Taro’s shoulder. “Shut up. But if you have to know, no. No we’re not. He isn’t that kind of person. He’s…”

“Hypermasculine?” Taro asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Victor said, his poncho flowing in the wind. “Other than the ridiculous crop top he wears. I mean, he wouldn’t let me show that kind of weakness. He wouldn’t let himself show that kind of weakness either…”

“So, what are you doing with all this?” Taro said, motioning to Rohan’s head upon his shoulder. “I’m not Victor, you know. I’m Taro. I’m just in Victor’s body.”

“Shut up,” Rohan snapped, wrapping his arms around Taro. “Just shut up. You’re not touch averse, are you?”

“I mean, I’m not,” Taro said. “Or else you would’ve been on the ground already.”

“So, what’s the problem, then? Just keep riding this stupid rock.”

Taro drummed his fingers on his knees. “I just don’t understand what you’re trying to achieve right now.”

“There will come a time where I won’t be able to see Victor anymore,” Rohan said. “And by the time that happens, I doubt I’ll be able to do this to him.”

“You think the contract will terminate before your bond grows enough that you can comfortably embrace each other?” Taro said, cocking an eyebrow. “But the rate Victor’s using my abilities, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“So I think I’ll just…” Rohan cleared his throat. “Stay in this dream for as long as I can. Would you let me do that much, at least?”

Taro hesitated. He was staring at his knees, the floating rock on autopilot. “I don’t really see why not. I can pretend to be Victor for you if you want.”

“Just be quiet and let me do this,” Rohan snapped.

Taro refused to look at Rohan. He just piloted the rock. The wind roaring through their ears could not mask the sound of Rohan’s tears. But for once, Taro pretended not to hear them.