The next four sections were hellish. Delusion, vanity, confusion, doubt. Each flight seemed to inundate me with awful sensation and then rip it out, stripping away the bits of it that remained insides. Each time I came away a bit stronger, if raw, and each time I felt myself get closer and closer to the truth of my second shackle. When we finally reached the last platform, I could feel the weight of my full presence, of my staff, and of the changes that had been made.

I was here. Really here, not as a fragment, and I was...different. I'd reached the peak of yellow, to my shock, but the shackle held me fast, containing my soul so it was incapable of breaking through and sublimating as I needed it to. It was an uncomfortable sensation, different than the mind shackle had been. The heart shackle was external, and it felt more restrictive, more uncomfortable.

Callie stood next to me, shaking slightly and with a glazed look on her face. She's had it just as bad if not worse. If nothing else though, we'd outpaced the others, and pulled pretty far ahead. This platform had been my turn, but since we'd hit our limits for growth, I'd only needed to absorb enough to heal. Callie had done the same and now we were facing the last set of steps together.

Sloth didn't seem like quite as much trouble as the rest, but...I was tired. Even before stepping foot on the first stair I was weary to an extent I'd never come close to before. Emotionally, physically, mentally, I was just drained. Empty. I'd FELT so much. Endured so much. Every step was harder to take, even the shift between emotions didn't matter anymore. The walk had seemed so endless and I was so run down.

The only reason I could keep going was the bond. Was Callie. The reason we'd pulled so far ahead was that the rest of them had to stop, and rest, and recover. But we hadn't. We'd kept going. Partly to prove to ourselves we could. Partly to prove it to each other. Partly to make sure neither of us had to continue alone, and partly to try to catch up to Billy.

We'd almost got him at the confusion platform. But we'd been so out of it that the fight had barely made sense. We'd attacked together, but whatever madness was in him made him more resistant to the emotions on the soul crushing stairs. We'd been winning, and even managed to snag his key shards, but he'd pulled out that damned vial of lamentation liquid and the whole stair began to shake.

He'd used the distraction to snatch the last bronze piece, completing his key, and ran off while we were trying to process what was happening. Being still confused and addled from the steps hadn't helped.

His behavior mystified me honestly. Why did he need a key? What was the stove? I pushed down those thoughts. I didn't need them right now. Couldn't take them. This next set of steps was going to be...hell. "Are you ready for this?" I asked Callie quietly. My voice was hoarse and tired. "We can go together?"

I made that offer every time, and every time she said no. I only made it so she'd know I was here if she needed me, I didn't want her to take me up on it. But...this time she almost did. She hesitated, dwelling on the option, and I could feel her desire to take my hand, to take comfort in my presence after our trials.

The things we'd gone through on these steps...soul crushing was right. I could barely function. I felt like I'd lived a hundred lives. Awful lives. This place really was crushing my soul, grinding it into dust and recasting it, smoothing out all the rough edges.

Finally, she shook her head. "No." She said firmly. "This is the last one. I know this is hard, but we can do this." She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than me, but with each word, her tone became firmer. She smiled at me. "You can do this. I believe in you. And I know you believe in me."

Nodding to each other, we turned and faced the last one hundred steps. The people who created this were sadistic geniuses. Sloth being the last flight of stairs had seemed like almost a relief a minute ago. How could Sloth compare to Hate, or Confusion? But it capitalized on every ounce of weariness. The more I thought about it the more worried I got. So...I stopped thinking.

I just stepped. The first step was barely noticeable. I felt the notion pop into my head that maybe this was too much trouble, maybe I should just stay on the platform, recover a bit before I went. I pushed past it, recognizing that for what it was. Doubt had been a bit like that. Not as insidious in some ways, though worse in others. Doubt had probably been the most terrible of the first six.

Still walking, I went to the second step, then the third. The desire to turn back became stronger, more extreme. Why was I doing this? Why was I doing any of this? I should just go home. I was so tired. I wasn't giving up. There would be time later for adventures. I just needed a rest. I'd already made so much progress.

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My foot froze on the tenth step. Why WAS I moving forward? Was it for me? I'd already learned that I needed to be myself, to stop trying to please everyone. Was I really doing that? Was pressing myself to get stronger really for me? Was this part of my heart shackle? Was I just giving in? I was so fucking tired. Every step was a lead weight crashing down on my head, blurring my vision and sapping my will.

I looked at Callie, swaying on her feet but advancing, fighting with every ounce of her soul to move forward. I could see, could FEEL how exhausted she was, but she just kept going. For me. For herself. For her mom. I grinned. Who cared about a little tiredness. If I let her get too far ahead I wouldn't be able to catch her if she slipped. Why was I focusing so hard on my reasons for doing this. I only needed the reason right in front of my face.

Be myself. That didn't mean be a selfish bastard motivated by my own desires and not care about anybody else. I took another step, and that sensation became clearer. The heart shackle had been bothering me for a while, and it wasn't until this moment I could really put the reason into words.

The heart lock was external. It was about the way other people weighed on me, about how they made me change. The mind shackle was from within, it was all about me, but the heart shackle meant confronting the effect others had on me, and breaking that...would it make those parts of me go away? Would it turn me into the same kind of arrogant jackass I'd seen other cultivators become? Would it destroy the things that made me happy?

And as I took another step, somehow reaching the halfway point without even noticing, I realized that THAT was my heart shackle. The fear of losing my attachment to the people I cared about. Being myself was an easy thing to commit to, because I just needed to block out all the nonsense, but this was something a bit more...elusive.

Because if I just decided to let that go, what was the difference between that and my fear coming true. My connections might not make me HUMAN exactly, I wasn't sure how close I was to that anymore, but they made me, well, me. If I unburdened myself of all connection I'd become the exact monster I was scared of becoming. Did that mean that the heart shackle was one I couldn't break?

The thought rang in my head like a bell. After finding it and having been planning to break it for so long, I could feel the damned thing jangling like it was about to snap. On the upside I wasn't tired. But...was my sudden desire to back away from this part of the Sloth flight's influence on me?

I forced myself to examine my thought processes. I knew what the shackle was. I needed to let go of that fear to break it. If I let go of the fear I'd be fullfill-wait. No. Letting go of the fear didn't mean letting go of my connections. That was a false equivalency. This whole experience was about facing down and accepting things without throwing them away. The ability to feel hate, and greed, and, sloth, and not be ruled by them.

Couldn't I do the same thing with my fear? This wasn't the same thing as the fear of loneliness I'd had to overcome in the forest. This was about what I was scared I'd become if I let go of my friends and loved ones. Even in the forest, the conclusion I'd come to was that if they went away, the effect they had on me would remain. I'd still be the same person.

And that had led me to my mind shackle, that I needed to be myself. That I needed to do what I did for me as well as for them. Now I needed to come to terms with my fear of losing those ties they left behind, but I didn't need to actually lose them. Not all my realizations had to come with some big sweeping change, wasn't that what being myself meant. Accepting who and what I was?

I was afraid of becoming a monster. I was afraid of leaving behind the bonds that kept me grounded. And that...was fine. I was me, and I decided what was important to me. That fear was a part of me but it didn't control me. I focused on it as I stepped forward again. On my dread, and I let the Sloth really smash it down on me. The thoughts about giving up, about how it was too much, wouldn't go away.

But I didn't want them to. I was going to overcome my fear the same way I'd overcome all the other emotions. I would get past it without actually severing those bonds. So I experienced it full blast. I lived in it. I felt the terror in every single cell of my body. It made me sick, and terrified, and I was shaking, but I pushed through.

I imagined losing Callie. Not the way I had in the forest, but losing what she'd made me. The one thing I'd clung to to get through that dark wood. Then the others, losing every single bit of change, not even being what I was before I got my powers, because I wouldn't have had Benny. It made me ill, I didn't want to think about it. But I did anyway. I forced myself to relive those sensations.

They mixed with the Sloth, they made it worse, but I couldn't stop, couldn't give up. I knew the desire to give in and turn back wasn't really me, and somehow that made it easier to ignore. I wasn't weak, the stair was trying to push me down, but I wouldn't let it.

Finally, my foot hit the platform, and there was a shattering sensation rocking my body as my soul sublimated again, the energy already at its limits carrying me from yellow into green. I felt...reborn. Spiritually. Physically I felt like shit, mostly because I was now completely present in this place. This was me, the real me, with all my stuff and all my flaws. A me that had officially reached green. Turning back, I glanced down at the stairs to wait for Callie. Once she arrived, we'd take a beat to rest, and then head off after Billy. There was no time to lose.