CHAPTER 4 : Aristides, the Philosopher of Ignorance (4)

That old pain and strife in every inch of his half-broken body, a sign he'd awoken. Oliver Horn knew no clearer sign of what was real, and that brought him back home to suffering itself.

And so he fought. Throwing himself back into the suspended duel without further ado. Not a bit off his stride. This was his life. His purpose was ever distant, ever clouded, his goals always a queue stretching out in front of him. The history replayed in that passing dream brought the outline of it all into sharp relief.

A row of corpses stretching across the horizon of his memory. And in their midst, the smallest of them—the body of an infant. On that distant day, cradled in his sister's arms, silenced forever. The greatest of the sins that drove him to his purpose. Branded onto his back, driving him ever onward.

The agony he'd wished upon himself. A veritable hell, befitting his position. His mad lamentations to the inferno raging within his heart.

Oh, daughter of mine. Stillborn babe, conceived in the vortex of vile misfortune, taken before you could even raise your birthing cry.

If you'll forgive my one request, do not be born again to a father like this. If there is a next time, choose not a devil.

For a time, I had the gall to try to be a father—and I thought up many a name for you. Dreamed of all the things I'd like to do for you. Imagined myself walking hand in hand with you as you grew up strong and healthy. Wondered how you'd smile. How your eyes would see me. How I'd feel as I looked back at you.

None of that was to be. You slipped through my fingers before a single one came to pass. Thus—it is all stuck here. All those bountiful emotions your sad excuse for a father would have lavished upon you. All as they were when I waited for your birth, afire with nerves and apprehension. They've become a bonfire, burning on within me.

I promise you this. Until my dying breath, they'll be with me. My heart will always be with you; I shall ever seek to atone, your curse shall ever be upon me. I don't imagine that will make amends. And yet—if my desperate struggles prove some small solace to you, that will be my salvation.

…And sometime, someday…in the distant future, that may or may not ever be.

Perhaps our souls will come back around, as soulology suggests they might.

I'll fight for that day. So that when you're granted life again, it may be under a better father. So that you may smile for him, the smile I never got to see.

And in the hopes that the world you find yourself in is just a little nicer than this one!

Much like with ordinary magic, the range of primal spells varied with the incantation used. Since releasing people required less work than applying stasis, the range affected covered quite a broad area around Demitrio himself.

"Shannon, go!" Gwyn yelled the instant he was free again.

He went to resume his spelljamming, but the last fight had left his viola buried in rubble. He pulled his spare violin out of his pocket and raised his arm—except there was nothing left below the elbow.

"…Tch…!"

That was no reason to give up. He called over a comrade, had them use healing to generate just enough flesh for the arm to function, and then jammed his spare bow in—directly fusing his wand to his arm.

"…Gah…!"

"Gwyn—!"

Her brother's gnarly treatment made Shannon cringe, but he just cast a spell to tighten the flesh around it, barking orders.

"Don't look at me! Keep Noll safe! Back him up!"

That one thought on every mind. Shannon tore her eyes off him, using her sensory zone to grasp the situation, then focused on her spells. Oliver's healing was always her top priority. He was still in the midst of a soul merge. The progenitor blood gave her expansive personal space, and the healing she did within that zone was all that kept his flesh from falling apart.

"…Sanavulnera…!"

Her spell echoed.

Seeing the siblings back in the fight, Janet grinned. "That's more like it. That's how you should be, Gwyn."

With that, she dashed past them toward their target. To play her part in all of this.

"Impetus! Flamma! Tonitrus!"

Demitrio had completely shut them down once, but the new status quo was drastically different. First—he wasn't using primal spells. Everything he cast was the standard magic they all knew—and though he was a Kimberly teacher, this was still a drastic reduction in output. A number of tactics that had previously been useless came back into play.

"…Gah—!"

Naturally, Demitrio wasn't choosing not to use his primal spells. He couldn't. Ever since Oliver escaped the dream, something else was preventing him from achieving selflessness. Needless to say, this was the splinter he'd not fully absorbed. When not selfless, he couldn't connect to the Grand Record, and in that state neither his perceptions nor his worldview enabled the use of any primal magic. As Oliver had said early in the fight—now he was but an ordinary mage.

"Frigus! Ngh—?!"

Demitrio was fending off their assault with ordinary spells when a sudden pain ran up his leg. Teresa Carste—the covert operative's sneak attack, from his blind spot down low. A shallow gash to the flesh, and she quickly shifted to prepping her next attack.

"Go, little one!"

"We're your wall!"

Comrades skilled in sword arts stepped up, giving her tiny frame coverage. She slipped behind them, always moving. No one hesitated. All were ready to give their lives for this fight. Dying to shield a comrade was part of the bargain, and at worst, merely a matter of order.

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━!!!!"

With an unvoiced roar, Teresa ran. All the white noise that had filled her head was gone completely. There was nothing here to think about. Forget the distinction between concern and desire; here she need only worry about keeping him safe and killing their target. All thoughts and acts devoted to those two things; nothing else required.

Thus, she felt it. In that moment, she knew she loved him. Forget the ugliness within her heart—the feelings beating there were true.

"A stealth fighter?! At this stage— Tonitrus!"

While Teresa had him distracted, a spell barrage bore down on him. Demitrio dodged and countered his way through. His eyes honed on the Gnostic fronts, swiftly taking the measure of his opposition. Who to take out first, where to aim, his mind solving the fight—and finding a male student whose position was a tad removed.

"Flamma!"

He cast a spell too close to dodge. Given the output discrepancy, he couldn't hope to counter it with an oppositional. Demitrio was sure he'd downed one—but was forced to revise that opinion. His target threw out both arms, soaking the spell head-on.

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━?!"

The flames burned the male student to a crisp. Mere seconds before he expired—her grin emerged from the flames.

"Finally tricked ya, Instructor."

Carmen Agnelli—she'd been disguised as a male student. And her murder created a channel between them. A horrible pathway that allowed her to send all the curse energy she had stored into Demitrio's body.

"…Ha-ha…"

Just before her mind cut out, she found herself thanking Rivermoore. She owed him this one. Because he'd completed his research and advanced necromancy to the next stage, she'd been free to throw her life on the pyre here. The future of her craft in his hands, she need only curse the shit out of their quarry.

There was a hint of envy mingled in. But she didn't mind. A mage's final thoughts were all too human. Thus—Carmen Agnelli was consumed by the fire, looking utterly satisfied.

"…Ngh…!"

Demitrio's body grew substantially heavier. The curse energy Carmen left behind clung to him. While still selfless, he could have dispersed this through the vicinity, but now he had no means of dealing with the threat. His only option was to fight on through it.

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━! Frigus! Flamma! Tonit■■s! Impetus!"

Each second was sapping away at his aplomb. But that did not dull his thoughts—he was not called a philosopher for his health. The first two spells kept students at bay. While their minds were on defense, he chain cast two more spells, knowing the first would be jammed.

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━!"

And his aim—the man most certain a third spell would not arrive. An arched wind spell bound for the spelljammer himself, Gwyn. The aim of Demitrio's wand was far off his target, delaying his response—Shannon too preoccupied with Oliver's healing to intercept. The wind blade bore down, too late to dodge—

"Prohibere!"

And Janet threw herself into the path. Her oppositional diminished it, but not completely—as she'd expected. The rest she soaked bodily. No attempt to evade. The blade cut into her—and through, slicing her chest in half.

"Janet!"

Behind her, she heard Gwyn yell. The top half of her fell to the ground, head up, and she glared at the man behind her.

"Not me, you fool! Your little brother's over there!"

Squeezing what little life she had left, she spat one more rebuke. Mercilessly forcing Gwyn back to his senses.

"I'm…sorry," he said.

If he stopped to heal her, she could be saved. He knew that—but he left her there, advancing on their foe. He'd been too focused on jamming, too removed from their comrades—and that had caused his predicament. He had to close in. Leaving the girl who'd saved his life to die.

Watching him go, Janet sighed.

"…Tch. Annoying as ever…"

She went limp. Much as she wanted to cast a spell with less than half a body and shock her foe, she'd used up that reserve of energy. Naturally, she regretted nothing. She'd been pleased he called her name. And glad he left her here.

"…I nursed that crush a looong time… Ha-ha, so sad."

Wouldn't even make a decent tabloid piece. A final thought that was very her—and Janet Dowling, editor of Kimberly's third-largest newspaper, breathed her last.

"What say we talk about our futures. What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Demitrio was at the podium, all his students present. Their hands started shooting up.

"I wanna open a restaurant in town!"

"I want to work at the library! Full of books, like your study!"

"Farmer! With lots of fields!"

Each voiced their hopes. Flett listened at the center of the room—then snorted.

"Such puny dreams. I ain't like you. I'm gonna be a broomrider, slay a dragon!"

"Ew, no way."

"You gotta be a mage to ride a broom."

"I might become one! I'm waving a wand every day!"

He looked indignant. Seeing the argument about to heat up, Demitrio raised both hands.

"Okay, okay, no squabbles. Class is in session. Maya, what about you?"

He turned to the girl in the front row. She smiled.

"I said already. I wanna study lots—and help you!"

Her answer never changed, and it made Demitrio choke up a bit. With some difficulty, he overcame that and turned to his charges.

"…Thank you. It's lovely that you've all got such different dreams. I can't promise they'll all come true, but if you're serious about them, I'm happy to help how I can. That's what a village mage does."

He thumped his chest. Educate the local children, broadening their options. A basic village mage duty—and one he was very conscious of. It was his job to help make many of these dreams possible.

"You shared a lot of goals here. Some will take a lot of work, and some may take a lot of luck. But none of them are as unlikely as my dream of visiting another world. Some of you will likely find your paths blocked and get discouraged. But remember this—the experience does mean something. Success and failure will both benefit you, as long as you still live."

That was Demitrio's lesson. Reality could be harsh, and these children would discover that for themselves. And so he tried to give them the tools they'd need to handle that. Teach them how to pick themselves up as they fell, wipe their tears, and keep moving forward. Life was all about that cycle. And that was true for mages and ordinaries alike.

"Don't lose your nerve! Always try. I promise, I'll be there for you as best I can."

A promise he had not kept.

He'd lived a long time since, yet that fact still drove him.

"Shhh—"

A foe came swinging in, and their wands clashed; he grabbed their athame tip with his off hand. Shifting the grapple from the wrist to the elbow to the shoulder, then putting his weight on it, dropping them. His foe tried to dislocate their shoulder and escape, but he got the tip of his wand at the base of their neck, forced his magic in, and ended their life.

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━!"

All that in the blink of an eye; it took Oliver's breath away. That was not sword arts. This was wand arts. Ancient self-defense techniques dating from before the spread of athame culture. Records of it still existed, but no one chose to study them. A dated, outmoded way of fighting only known by mages in ancient history.

"…You carry a burden you can never set down," Demitrio growled, stepping on the student's body. Everyone here was ready to throw their life away, yet his ferocity was so intense it still slowed their assault. "Do not tell me…you believed you were the only one."

His eyes bored into Oliver. His voice quivered.

"That would be arrogance, boy. I bear my own!" he screamed. "For five hundred and sixty-seven years, I have carried this!!!!!"

A roar that left a mark. Scores of memories erupted across the back of Demitrio's mind.

He knew full well—no one else even remembered. Not that little mountain village, not the simple lives of the people there. The world moved on, and no one looked back.

But he remembered. Maya, Flett, Mishka, Famle, Luca…the faces and names of all the students who'd looked up to him, each and every dream they'd confided in him. He alone would remember that forever. Along with his vain promise to be there for them—and the betrayal that left him snatching away their futures with his own hands.

He still wondered. Had he not cut their lives short, how would they have grown up? Some would have achieved their dreams; some would not have. Some from each group would've had children of their own. And those children would have had dreams of their own. As would their kids, and those kids' kids, on and on—but his grievous error had erased all such possibilities.

Their potential had been infinite—and thus, so was the sin of taking that away from them. There was no way to atone. How could there be? Thus, his atonement would never end. His only choice was to devote every fiber of his being to protecting the world, as some small measure of amends. A penance that would continue until his life gave out.

"…Yeah, Instructor. I know," Oliver whispered.

The nature of this enemy was all too familiar. He understood it as he did his own. He'd seen it himself—while the philosopher was peering at Oliver's memories, Yuri had shared some of Demitrio's with Oliver.

Each bore the burden of sin. Demitrio had tried to protect the world. Oliver was trying to change it.

That was the sole difference. Nothing more, nothing less.

"So I will shoulder yours as well."

With that promise, Oliver lunged at him. Demitrio braced for the clash. No longer selfless, no longer tapping into the Grand Record, yet neither prevented him reaching that state that precedes the division between the subjective and objective. What came next was written in stone. Spellblade versus spellblade, the ultimate collision.

Oliver had no clear path to victory. Merely a premonition. He'd been reminded of the true shape of his spellblade, and what it whispered to him would be vital to reaching this foe. Trusting that sensation, he stepped in. As they reached one-step, one-spell range—each activated their spellblade.

Over here, Oliver.

The sign he'd believed in. Oliver set his eyes on it and pounced. Not looking back, forging dead ahead. Down the one future that would make him suffer most.

The fifth spellblade. Papiliosomnia, the butterfly's dream of death.

Divisions melded. Unavoidable, imperceptible, an enlightened act that brought defeat within a primal dream to all with a conscious mind. This man had spent his life polishing his ability to dive into the depths of the mind, and now that craft bared its fangs.

The fourth spellblade. Angustavia, the abyss-crossing thread.

A thread plucked. Unbeatable, inescapable, a fatal act that reeled in the one true path buried in a sea of infinite defeats. The boy had sacrificed his own life to make the absurdity of fate his, and now that craft roared.

Wand and athame crossed, each bearing the crown of supremacy.

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"

"...…"

Their backs to each other, neither spoke. Like nothing had happened. As if they'd never dueled, never tried to kill each other.

Then the silence was broken by the faintest of sounds—something dripping.

"...…"

The ground at Demitrio's feet was slowly turning red. Blood, oozing from the gash on his chest. Dripping from a gouge running from his side all the way to his heart—the crimson shade of life itself.

"…The part of me I could not cast off…proved my undoing."

A whisper, like a sigh. The man's body crumpled to the ground.

The dust had settled. Certain all comrades who still breathed were getting the treatment they needed, Oliver turned to his fallen foe.

"..."

His feet stopped near where Demitrio lay, looking wordlessly down at him. Eventually, the man's lips parted.

"…Very clever. In the heat of the moment…aiming for him, inside of me."

"…Yuri called out to me. Had he not…I'd have been the one lying here."

This was how he'd won. At that fatal moment, he'd aimed not for Demitrio—but for Yuri. The one off-note in that selfless song.

The fifth spellblade had robbed him of all distinctions—but Yuri alone, he'd kept in sight. That was directly linked to the true character of his own spellblade. A future in which he slew a friend by his own hand—that was the choice that made Oliver suffer most, and the future that had stood out from all else.

He stood by his fallen foe, unmoving. Unable to move.

"…What now?" Demitrio asked. "No plans to torture me as you did Darius?"

"You know better!" Oliver barked. His eyes were swimming with emotions in conflict. "It's not fair…! You're not fair! This is such bullshit!" he spat. "Yuri… He's still there, inside you! My friend's in there! How many times did he come to my rescue? How…how…how can I hurt him more? How can I turn to torture, after…?!"

A sob cut him off.

"Ah…," Demitrio said, eyes on the air above. "That's on me. I did not intend to use him as a shield."

Not a defense that meant anything, really. Oliver wiped his tears, looking down at him.

"I can't torture you. But I'll not let you flee the interrogation," Oliver said resolutely. "Answer me this, Demitrio Aristides. Explain what you did to her. What lay in your mind? What drove you to such acts?"

The fundamental question. Demitrio's eyes turned to Oliver's face.

"...How'd the others answer?"

"…Darius never managed a coherent word. Enrico insisted it was symbolic. The shared experience of trampling upon her soul proved you were each complicit. To him, that was the purpose."

Demitrio sighed, closing his eyes.

"…That was an aspect of it. However—my views on it were a little different."

"..."

"I acted to shore up my resolve. To force myself to never again cling to my memories of Chloe. To never let myself hope for the future she spoke of. By ending our relationship in the worst imaginable light—with that dark suggestion, I sealed away Chloe Halford's light. I knew I'd need it, if I was to continue down this path afterward. To avoid my footsteps faltering."

Choking back the bile, Oliver clenched his fists.

"…Was it never an option? To just…follow her?"

"I can't say I never considered it. But—I didn't make that choice. It just seemed like a reckless gamble. Her idea of the future placed too much hope in people. I weighed the damages in the event of a betrayal against the price of maintaining the status quo. Protecting the darkness of the present over chasing a blinding dream…"

His voice faded out. After a long silence, Demitrio spoke again.

"If you call me a coward, I'll not argue. I'm sure you're right. But when you live as long as I have, you start to realize just how dangerous it is to alter your course toward a new bright light without due consideration. You learn to fear giving yourself—and the world—over to the hopes and fervors those lights offer.

"Not to repeat myself, but the Gnostic hunts were always like that. Similar tragedies everywhere you looked. The Gnostics' hearts may be stolen by a tír god, but they are not flinging themselves into darkness by choice. They're all tumbling into that pit, reaching for the light they think they see there. The greater their hopes, the worse the outcomes. I felt certain Chloe's attempt could become one of the worst instances ever. For that reason, I simply could not join her in her endeavors."

Oliver said nothing. This answer did not seem like it was glossing over anything. Yuri had helped their hearts connect—and for that reason, he knew this was all genuine.

"That's about all I can say on a personal level. But I doubt that's what you really wish to know."

"..."

Oliver's silence signaled his agreement.

"Why did Esmeralda betray Chloe?" Demitrio said. "I don't have a complete answer for you, there. She never once spoke her thoughts, and we did not attempt to pry them from her. Her actions were proof enough she was one of us." He continued. "From that night on, she's protected the world, more like a mage than anyone else around. Strong, harsh, and firm to myself and others. Like that duty is a curse she's placed upon herself. Her heart may be hidden, but when you cross death's line together, you come to know these things. And thus, I placed my faith in her."

"..."

"I know not what goes on in her head. But there are a few assumptions I can make from the events that transpired: First—that torture was, more than anything, something Esmeralda herself required. I'm not talking about motives, here. Regardless of what she wanted, she needed that. Perhaps a need so urgent it forced a hand that wanted nothing to do with it. The most likely cause…"

"…Prepping for the soul absorb."

Oliver had reached the same conclusion.

"That is my assumption, yes." Demitrio nodded. "The destruction of the self is likely a prerequisite for absorbing anyone's soul. The soul merge you practice is predicated on an innate compatibility between the souls in question, yes? Esmeralda's is not. She can absorb anyone. No matter the soul, she makes it hers. Which implies there must be a process, one forcing compatibility upon them."

A reasonable assumption, Oliver thought. Much about the soul remained a mystery, but there were rules. A vampire's powers meddled with the soul via a very different process than the progenitor aspect, but those rules applied in equal measure.

"I believe that was the reason for the torture. And the fact that she kept out of it, yielding it to us—that fits. For the same reasons you cannot bring yourself to torture me now. She could not have managed it if she had not ceded that part to us. Could not have thoroughly demolished all that Chloe was, trampling on it, rendering her soul vulnerable and exposed. Could not make the soul ready for absorption by her own hand."

Oliver gritted his teeth. This made the rest make even less sense. If she had to foist the task off, why do it at all? Or why be with his mother all that time in the first place? If she'd chosen to protect the status quo for reasons like Demitrio's, that was inconsistent with all the time she'd spent shoulder to shoulder with Chloe Halford. And nothing like this could be caused by a fickle change of heart.

"After that—it's covered in darkness. Why did she want Chloe's soul so badly? Why choose the agony of protecting the world with that power? I have no answers to any of that. Thus, this is all I can provide."

Demitrio looked right at Oliver.

"What I will say next is a warning. Not as your enemy but as your teacher. If you don't wanna hear it, fine. Finish me off now."

Oliver considered this, then let him speak. Not that he had a choice. Stabbing the friend inside this man a second time? In a situation that did not demand it, that option was off the table.

"The soul absorb that night let Esmeralda take power from Chloe's soul. You're already aware of that. But—that was not the end. In the years that followed, she's done the same thing over and over. Do you know how many mage's souls she's taken in?"

Oliver shook his head. And Demitrio laid out the cold, hard truth.

"Over a hundred. And that's just the ones I know about. Enemies encountered on a Gnostic hunt, colleagues who stood up to her approach, political enemies who dared come after her. The outcome was always the same. Esmeralda put them all down—and those whose souls she deemed worthy became a part of her. Can you imagine it? All those souls are inside her, serving as the source of her power."

"...!"

"This is the cause of her chronic headaches. They're writhing inside her. The grudges of so many souls absorbed against their will, crying out this very instant for their freedom. No ordinary mentality could bear it. Madness would be a natural outcome. But she remains the same. Stockpiling the strength of countless stolen souls inside her, swallowing the accompanying curses, but her character has not changed at all since that fateful night. That terrifies me. More than the power she's absorbed—the fact that it has not changed her leaves me with a gnawing fear in the pit of my stomach."

Demitrio's voice shook. That same emotion threatened Oliver, but he forced it aside.

"That's the enemy you've made," the philosopher continued. "I know you yourself have gone through unimaginable pain to acquire the strength you have. I've seen your memories—I know. But even then—what you have gained is Chloe's strength alone. And only a small portion of it." He then asked Oliver: "How can you fight her? What can you do with that little power? Against that vampire—how can you begin to compete?"

Faced with that question, Oliver let a silence hang before he spoke. He knew the question urged pessimism. Thus—he did not overcomplicate it.

"…We have no chance of victory? You said the exact same thing before we fought. Darius and Enrico likely thought the same."

He would not say they'd overcome those odds. The losses on his side had been too great to take pride in them. Instead…

"We will prevail. Again and again. I can say nothing else."

His words rang out. Less a proclamation than a promise. A vow sworn on the bodies of all the comrades they'd lost.

Demitrio looked at the athame in Oliver's hand.

"…You're banking on that spellblade. As well you might."

As he spoke, a memory flitted across his mind. One from a past he'd long put out of mind, a voice he'd sealed away deep within.

"I don't hold with assholes who talk in absolutes. That's why I go around stomping 'em. You get me, old-timer? That shit's the whole damn point of this spellblade!"

He could see her all too clearly. His old student, grinning up at him. A real thorn in his side, always acting out in class—but always with that open grin.

"…The seal's…loosened up," he muttered.

He didn't see the point in putting it back. He'd already lost and no longer had a reason to insist.

"That's all I have to say. Genuinely—nothing else remains. By way of amends for depriving you of torture… Well, there's not much time left, but for the rest of it, you may speak to him."

With that, Demitrio closed his eyes. A few seconds later, they opened again—but with a cheery light Oliver's philosopher nemesis had never once betrayed.

"Oh, Oliver!"

Spotting a friend, he called out.

"…Yuri?" Oliver gasped.

"Huh? Oh, sorry, mind moving closer? Seems like my hearing's going faster than my eyesight. I can't make out a word!"

Oliver dropped to his knees, inching nearer. An apology escaped him before anything else.

"Sorry, Yuri. I just—"

"You cut me down, yeah? Good. It worked! I was outta ideas, otherwise."

Yuri's voice was infinitely upbeat. Not a hint of a shadow anywhere on his smile, and that hit Oliver harder than a thousand insults.

"…Why…why are you like this, Yuri…? Rebuke me! At least spare me a little spite; I'm begging you! You saved me till the bitter end! And—all I did was cut you down…!"

He couldn't stop the tears rolling. Yuri's brow furrowed, at a loss.

"Uh-oh, he's crying again. Aw man. I'd rather see your smile…"

"…At a time like this?!"

Oliver couldn't repress the sobs. Yuri watched for a moment, thinking, then he had an idea and turned his eyes elsewhere.

"Okay! Take a look, Oliver. Up! Above us!"

"Huh…?"

He did as he was told, turning to the sky above. The false sky had been a pale blue with streaks of clouds, but it was now rapidly shifting to night.

"…Ah…"

And then the stars came out. Oliver gaped up at them, and Yuri grinned.

"Rad, right? He said there were no magical alterations, but that's not true for the sky. Otherwise, it'd always be dark in here! There's no natural day/night cycle in the labyrinth. So I just gave it a push and brought night on early."

Yuri stuck out his tongue. His eyes never left the stars.

"Looking at me makes you sad, right? Then don't. Look at the stars instead. Like we did the other day, lying side by side."

Oliver wiped away his tears, nodding. He laid down next to Yuri, gazing at the stars above.

"…They sure are pretty."

"Mm. I think so, too," Yuri whispered, the yearning within unadulterated. "That's why he always looked up at them. Always wanted to go there. He gave up and looked away, but deep down, that never changed. And that's why…I stayed inside him."

He voiced the philosopher's innermost desires. Oliver said nothing. Yuri's eyes turned to a specific star, his tone brightening considerably.

"That's Vanato! You've heard of it, right? It's full of really lonely creatures. Imagine their faces if the two of us went there!"

"…They'd be pretty startled. Maybe not by me, but you tend to be boisterous."

"Ah-ha-ha! They'd run away from me. We'd have to give chase!"

"That would make it worse." Oliver winced. "It'd be better not to rush things—just sit down, let them come to us. They'd probably get curious and approach, little by little, getting closer…"

Yuri had gone quiet, looking at his friend.

"…You didn't run from me," Yuri said.

Oliver looked away. A bit late to hide his blushing face.

"…You were so shady I forgot to. Honestly—you scared me at first."

"What about now? Do I still scare you?"

"No. And I've given up on settling you down… It's like I'm not even sitting in the dark. With you around, it's always a party."

He trailed off. Scared his voice would break if he said more.

"My bad. I'm a boisterous one, " Yuri said. "Are you crying again?"

"…No…"

Oliver shook his head, forcing back the tears, turning his eyes back to the stars.

Yuri squinted. "I can't see 'em anymore. Oliver…can I borrow your eyes for a sec?"

Oliver nodded and took Yuri's hand. Visual sharing was ordinarily done with wands, but their hearts were already linked and did not need them. The stars Oliver saw—and how he felt about them—flowed into Yuri's mind.

"Wow… They're just as pretty with your eyes."

He sounded happy. His breathing grew shallow, faint.

"…Tell me…Oliver… Are you…smiling…?"

"I am," Oliver insisted. "I can't cry here! The view's too amazing."

He was sure this was true. Maybe a few tears escaped, but he was sure he was smiling. As was the boy beside him.

"…Good… Just...like me..."

He sounded relieved. And with that—Yuri spoke no more.

Thirty-two entered combat on the fourth layer.

Combat goal achieved. Demitrio Aristides slain.

Twelve comrades lost in battle.

Note: There was an unexpected casualty.

One friend.

END