I Am Not Alone

"Ryuuko!"

My name cut right through the warm comfort of darkness.

To be completely honest, I never really liked my name. It was too masculine and was laughably unfitting for someone like me. Not only that, but it was my father who gave it to me.

Every time I heard it, I was reminded of that even if only a little. Even now, it was preventing me from my well-deserved rest.

As if acting on its own accord, my hand shot up and gripped the blade that had barely begun to sink its tip into the center of my head.

Blood trickled down my forehead, not entirely belonging to my hand. The archbishop hadn't struck bone yet, but the weapon was already deep enough to draw blood.

I opened my eyes and looked up at the archbishop. He had that same vacuous expression on his face save for his smirk, but it was amusing.

Even though I was literally mere inches away from dying, I felt calm and in control. Of course, I couldn't hold his blade in this position for much longer. Even now, my hand was shaking and aggravating the incision in my forehead.

But none of that mattered.

"You just couldn't let me go in peace, could you... Priya?"

It was only now that my eyes had settled on the one who had called my name. She was bloodied and battered, and one of the horns that adorned her head had been cut in half.

Standing next to her was Antenora who was equally exhausted and injured from the battle that they'd just no doubt concluded. Her eyes landed on me briefly before flitting to Lucrezia and Aurelia's position.

It seemed that I hadn't managed to fully redirect the force of the archbishop's blow from their position. Even though I'd moved the attack away from them, it looked like the resulting shockwave from his strike had managed to knock out Lucrezia completely.

The way she laid next to her sister was honestly kind of peaceful. I wish I could've been in her place, asleep and unaware of my impending death.

I managed to laugh, despite my destroyed lungs. It wasn't that surprising, seeing as I could speak earlier. Call it anime logic, or call it my ridiculous constitution stat. I didn't care or know right now.

All I could do was wonder when it was that I became so comfortable with death. Was it because I had already died once? Was it because I'd already fulfilled the desires that I was missing in my previous life?

Nah.

This kind of thing always followed me around, even back on Earth. I was prone to giving up and blaming it on the circumstances of my birth. I mean, it was true that I didn't have the best conditions when I was growing up, but I always pushed people away.

I never learned to trust, never learned to love. I never learned to take a risk, because that's what trust and love was all about.

You placed all of your hopes and dreams into the hands of another and miraculously, they'd feel the same. Either that, or they'd crush everything you are into irreparable shards.

I wasn't ready for that. Not until I came here, at least. I was eager to please, eager to give, eager to pander. But was that really trust?

Nah.

It was just desperation.

But even so, despite my disgusting self, there was still one person who was willing to trust me in this world.

Priya.

Back in that room, if Antenora really had been some sort of deviant asshole, she probably would've died. It was the perfect excuse for Antenora to kill her off, after all.

Surrounded by Shades and a powerful caster, Antenora could've easily said that Priya perished in the fight when I left the two of them alone. I would've had no way of confirming whatever story she chose to spin.

More importantly, Priya had been the first to suspect Antenora. She had been the one to open my eyes to all the weird shit that'd been happening around her. All the shit that I was being blissfully ignorant of.

But even so, she thought of Lucrezia's feelings and mine too. I didn't truly understand the meaning of her statement in the heat of the moment, but now I finally did.

It wasn't just about Lucrezia seeing her sister. It was about the three of us reuniting: Lucrezia, Aurelia, and I. Even though I was only family in name, Priya had still considered that.

And because of that, she took a risk. The risk of being alone with Antenora who she did not trust, but did so anyway because of me.

Right now, the two of them were alive and breathing but if I had been wrong, she would not be standing here right now. If the Antenora I consciously chose to continue traveling with had indeed been a traitor, Priya's blood would be on my hands.

Thanks to Priya, the worries I had before entering the Precipice of Night had disappeared like snow in the sunshine. I was sure that even if everyone else abandoned me the moment this was over, I'd still have her by my side.

And really, that was all I needed. Just one friend who would stick by my side no matter what.

...Thank you, Priya.

I didn't have the energy to say it right now, but I needed to live so that I could tell her later. But was there really a way I could win here?

In fact, there was.

In those painfully slow seconds I'd spent with my eyes closed, I saw a path. In a few more seconds, that path would become open to me. I counted down slowly as the tip of the archbishop's sword sunk lower and lower into my head by the second.

But it would never pierce my thick skull.

[ERROR: Darkness value exceeds system limit. Unpermitted excess Darkness will now be converted into a temporary buff.]

Now, it was my turn to smirk as that message popped up in front of me.

I could feel the space around me vibrate just like last time, and a powerful kinetic force blasted the archbishop backward, sending him tumbling through the air and into the wall across from us.

I immediately healed myself using [Devouring Healing], closing my wounds instantly.

For the first time since he'd pulled out that wackass sword, Archbishop Taunes' expression changed. His face contorted in rage and then disbelief.

"...How!?" He roared in fury as he charged toward me, swiping his sword in a wide horizontal arc.

It was rather simple, really. The last time this happened, it was because my Darkness value exceeded the system limit. It had nothing to actually do with his attack.

I simply reproduced that trigger using [Penumbric Conversion]. It had a painfully slow conversion rate at 1 mana to Darkness per second, but those precious few seconds I spent preventing my imminent demise had sufficed.

The mana that I'd converted into Darkness had been enough to cause an overload of my Darkness value in the system's eyes.

The current temporary buff wasn't as powerful as the one I'd received the first time, but that was because I wasn't done dumping my entire mana pool into my Darkness.

I mean, I hadn't used a single point of mana during the entire fight thanks to [Penumbric Conversion]'s ability that allowed me to treat Darkness as mana, so I was only going to get stronger as the fight went on.

Not that it would for very long, though.

The blade of my hand sliced through the air and parried the archbishop's attack with extreme ease. His movements had still been visible before, but now they were almost slow.

In a few more seconds, he'd start to become sluggish in my eyes once more. It was almost like a repeat of our first fight.

Except I wouldn't make the same mistake again.

I closed the distance between myself and Archbishop Taunes in a single step, gripping his sword arm and crushing it. The sensation of bones splintering in my hands was unpleasant, but I felt a sense of perverse pleasure from the act.

Maybe it was because I was currently demolishing every last hope of victory this man had.

The sword clattered to the ground and I placed my palm against the center of his chest almost gently.

"Game over."