Her blade pierced through my chest, obliterating the entire back of my body. Bone and blood scattered across the ground like shattered glass.
The pain swelled, overwhelming and suffocating. I winced, barely able to stay conscious. She tilted her head with a curious look.
"Are you feeling pain? No, no, no. I want you to feel something more. Regret."
Suddenly, a deafening sound erupted, a cataclysmic roar that tore through reality.
It was so powerful that my soul screamed in agony. My essence itself convulsed under the weight of it.
In that terrible moment, something deep within me cried out, desperate and instinctive.
"Inanis!" I screamed.
From my mouth, a dark, twisted energy burst forth. It was not a perfect sphere.
It was something else. Something broken. Something incomprehensible.
The energy shot through the world, ripping through space and time, and pierced straight through her head.
Her sword trembled in her grip. It shook. It cried. And then, as if pulled by an invisible force, I found myself speaking again.
"Scream Inanis!"
My blade moved on its own, clashing against hers with violent force. She was thrown backward by the impact.
In that moment, surrounded by chaos and the ringing echoes of destruction, I saw it.
Her smile.
Her wound closed without a trace, and she shifted her stance. Her head slammed into mine and I stumbled back, my vision blurring.
I raised my blade just in time to block her next strike.
With a twist of my wrist and a swirling motion of my hand, I launched her into the air. A black hole formed above her, and she was pulled into it.
Silence followed.
Then the black hole collapsed inward. From its implosion, she emerged again, cloaked in swirling purple light.
Her sword glowed like a comet as she descended. But I lifted a single finger and stopped it.
Something changed.
I felt it. Words, ideas, power, control. I could stop it all. I understood that now.
"You, you're showing me so many flaws."
Her body trembled, and she dropped to the ground. I stepped forward, pressing my blade against her neck.
"You are the traitor? I expected more strength from you."
She glared up at me. "All you did was momentarily stun me."
My eyes widened.
A massive spear of purple energy surged toward me. I bent backward, dodging it by a breath.
She swung again, and I flipped into a landing, immediately lunging upward.
Our blades collided, ringing like thunder.
But this time, it was not me who was sent flying.
My blade extended into hers, shattering it and piercing straight through her neck.
At the same moment, the force of the clash hurled her backward. A hauntingly beautiful scene played out.
She hung in the air, impaled, as blood pooled below her. The light in her eyes dimmed, fading slowly.
And yet, even in that final moment, she glared at me with an unbearable, unshaken smile.
"The name of my Memory: Visionary."
In an instant, my vision, my perception, everything I had hoped to do… it was all lost to me.
I moved, but I had no purpose. My sword slipped from my hand as she approached.
It felt as if time itself was distorting, as if my thoughts were unraveling and space had lost all logic.
"To look at me, to attack me, is to attack the future. With me standing before you, all attempts against me are rendered irrelevant."
This was beyond simple fate manipulation, beyond controlling causality.
What she was doing was far more terrifying. She was forcing an outcome to be true, and any attempt to deny that truth became a lie.
My senses were betraying me.
Time was betraying me.
Space, reality, everything turned against me.
In her eyes, all things were anchored to a single baseline, a truth that could not be overrun.
To act, just as she said, was useless.
How the hell do you even counter something like this?
I tried to speak, but only jumbled words and broken sounds escaped my mouth.
She looked down at me, but my perception warped.
She was in front of me and behind me at the same time.
She kicked me forward while gripping my neck.
I tried to break free, to think of something, anything that could get me out of this situation, but I could not.
This was it. The end.
Until I heard her voice.
"I really hate this. I hate how you act so different when fighting us."
My vision snapped back. I was suddenly back on my throne, but now her blade was pierced through both me and the throne itself.
Tears streamed down her face.
"Why are you doing this? Why aren't you erasing me, killing me, smiting me down like nothing more than a bug?"
She twisted the blade, and blood poured from my mouth.
"Why are you abandoning me? Why are you still so arrogant?"
She pushed the blade deeper and deeper until the guard pressed against my chest.
"Why would you allow any of this?" she screamed.
I could barely speak. My words emerged in a blur, a haze of pain and confusion.
"It's my fault. I'm sorry."
[The king felt regret in that moment, for something he himself could not remember, but he knew how it felt.]
The voice grated on me. It annoyed me, deeply.
[He knew how it felt to be abandoned. How it felt to be lost, to become an idol without hope.]
I hated how the voice acted as if it knew everything.
[He too had a figure he longed to see again. He too had someone who was his hope.]
I had a roommate.
He was always smiling, so proud, so sure he would recover.
[When his hope died, something inside him died too. For a long time, he could not explain that feeling, the feeling of losing peace.]
Calista released the blade and stumbled backward. She collapsed to the ground, and as she did, Lancerial placed a hand on her shoulder.
Mirabel gently pulled the blade from my chest and began to heal me, and my mind started to regain clarity.
Reality settled back into place, but Calista remained there, sitting with tears in her eyes as Lancerial sighed beside her.
I turned to Mirabel.
"Tell me everyone's names. I need to know exactly who I let die for me."
Mirabel turned away.
"When a follower of yours dies, they are erased. To remember their names is impossible."
I placed a hand on my head and laughed. A hollow laugh, one that made my insides ache.
"Just what kind of man was I?"
With tears welling in her eyes, Calista looked at me and answered. "A cruel man who gave out false hope. That's what you are."
Lancerial placed a hand over her mouth.
"That is enough out of you. What were you thinking, attacking the king?"
Mirabel sighed. And it was in that moment I remembered a law I had made.
Any intent to harm, outside of necessity or required perspective, results in the imminent execution of the perpetrator.
It had not even been a moment after that thought before Mirabel drove her sword through Calista's heart.
"I am sorry it had to end this way. If the events had transpired differently, I might have even considered you a friend."
Just before she died, just before her form faded away, she came to me. Her spirit drifted over in a blurry haze.
Time came to a halt as she spoke.
"I would watch out for those two. Secrets are common among them."
Afterward, I could not recall her name. It was not as if I had forgotten it.
I remembered it clearly. However, it was more like it no longer existed.
To say it aloud would be bringing her back, which was impossible.
Like a faded memory, she had ceased to be in this very moment.
.