Fractured Mind

 "Operate right here?"

Kai'Sa glanced back at the swarm of creatures, ensuring no abnormal behavior before squatting beside the Riftwalker's corpse. Suppressing nausea, she began dissecting the body with the hilt-less dagger—a task she had never performed, her only similar experience being watching her mother slaughter chickens.

Learning from Kane's previous mishap, she handled the task with utmost care, keen to avoid any of the Riftwalker's caustic fluids splattering onto her skin. The substances were terrifying, like the antithesis of matter, eroding flesh upon contact.

After some time, she managed to extract the heart from its cartilaginous casing and placed it atop the Riftwalker's carapace.

It resembled a broken egg cradled in its shell, with the viscous purple energy oozing out like sesame paste from within a dumpling, drop by drop distorting the air and eliciting black smoke as it dissolved the rock beneath.

Witnessing this, Kai'Sa couldn't help but wonder if such a substance could truly save a life. Why hadn't it claimed hers when she first encountered it?

"Give it to me, quickly."

Hearing Kane's urgent call, she spun around but the heart's gelatinous, Void-infused mass proved too slippery and light, flinging from her grasp by the centrifugal force to slap against her carapaced arm.

The carapace began voraciously absorbing the energy, purple light forming a network within the gouge, as the pale substance knitted the gash closed like a weaver repairing a tattered blanket.

Inadvertently, the heart was mostly devoured. Kai'Sa, in a panic to shake off the remains for Kane, watched helplessly as her uncontrollable carapace consumed it all.

"I'm sorry, I... it wasn't on purpose..."

Her face was a mask of grief as she looked up at Kane to find his complexion deathly pale, a stark contrast to his dark veins. Then he slumped to the ground, the light fading from his eyes, indiscernible in the darkness.

A look of hopes dashed.

Kai'Sa's heart skipped a beat, realizing she had botched things, leading to dire consequences.

"I'll find another heart, just please... don't... don't give up..."

She supported Kane, her immense dread enveloping her, her tone as abject as one pleading with the Reaper Twins Kindred to spare all that she cherished.

"Don't be foolish; you can't fight all those Riftwalkers alone. Get me out of here first."

With his last ounce of strength, Kane looped his arm around Kai'Sa's neck, preventing her from leaving his side.

His tone was commanding, giving her the illusion he still had strength to spare. Kai'Sa's shoulders trembled with defeat as she guided him deeper into the tunnel.

Only when they reached a safe spot did she gently lay him down.

But as she released him, he collapsed, strengthless, his eyes barely open, weak and blurry as they fixated on Kai'Sa.

His body, ravaged by the Void, teetered on the brink of life; the world was slipping away from her once more.

The sight plunged her into darkness.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry... please... please don't leave!"

Despair engulfed her like a suffocating shroud, her cries echoing through the tunnel, swallowed by the endless dark. The ancient purple light remained unshaken, colder than death itself.

Kai'Sa bowed her head, feeling a breath against her face. Kane's lips trembled, words struggling to form.

Wiping away tears, she leaned in close, straining to catch his faint breath.

"Survive, Kai'Sa..."

A parting wish filled with regret, as they couldn't survive together.

As his voice faded to silence, leaving only the faintest of breaths, Kai'Sa couldn't contain her sorrow, her nose twitching as she wept.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

Like a woman possessed, she apologized repeatedly while jabbing her carapace with the dagger.

In her mind, Kane's survival hinged on the very thing affixed to her—after everything that had happened, she'd eagerly rip it off and attach it to him if it could save his life, even if it meant her own death...

The dagger left marks on the carapace, igniting a glimmer of hope. Gritting her teeth, Kai'Sa jabbed with all her might, desperate to revive Kane.

Driven by a resolve to save him, she bypassed her self-preservation instinct; the blade sliced through the carapace, spilling luminescent violet blood onto Kane's face, as she felt searing pain.

Beneath the ghastly wound, her skin appeared lifeless, akin to that of a blind burrower beneath the desert stones. The cut in the carapace was like a bruised abyss emitting null light, a gateway to another world.

The horrific sight deepened her self-loathing, but this was no time for such thoughts.

Dangling her arm, she let the strange blood from her carapace flow onto Kane's withered, blackened limb.

After all was done, there was no sign of improvement in Kane. Fearing a lack of energy, Kai'Sa grabbed the spear and dashed toward the swarm's gathering place.

"Wait for me. I'll bring you a whole heart!"

Kai'Sa's footsteps faded, leaving Kane alone in the darkness once more.

The violet blood worked its way into his eyes, infiltrating the retinal vessels.

The eyes, nearest to the brain, were the first to fill with the strange, unknowable Void energy, bringing with it a ravenous hunger. Kane caught a glimpse of eternal illusion within the eerie purple glow.

Dissolution.

Annihilation.

As his mind and memories started to fragment into the same void, he struggled to recall his own name.

Not just his name, but sensation, awareness, sound, and light all slipped away to the far side of existence, beneath planes where even the concept of time held no sway.

The true Void.

His own existence began to blur, his being erased. He recognized the process, yet not the reason or the method.

Something terrifying writhed within, consuming his brain; his mind began to shatter, deconstructing, dispatched to a realm of only darkness and cold.

That entity roamed greedily through his memories, devouring without restraint, then surged into the forbidden zone, touching upon his very core—

—the memories of another world.

In that moment, his once necrotic arm clenched into a fist...