chapter 26

It's dark. Too dark in this room.

A set of blinding flood lights were turned on, stinging my retina. The room was, medical in nature. It looked like a mad scientists lab.

It seems I'd glanced over something.

There he was. Strapped to an operating table, was my master. He seemed to at least be asleep.

Until the footsteps started to ring out. Each step made him shake more. His breathing increased, eyes dilating, struggling.

He struggled.

Struggle he tried.

Failure was the result.

I watched. I'd never seen a man so scared.

Of all artoria's knight's, I had never seen such fear.

Of all her subjects, there had been none so traumatised.

A man walked out of the darkness, a long white lab coat, a strange pair of glasses, blonde hair and a mad grin on his face.

The mad doctor began to speak but I heard nothing. A phrase rang through my head, tens, no, hundreds of times.

"I have no tears left to give."

It was a hoarse, masculine voice. Quite, seductive if I might admit. Oh, how I'd love to hear him whisper into my ear.

Those thoughts were thrown away as I saw the doctor reaching into his coat, pulling out a scalpel.

"Now, my dear captain. If you keep resisting, I'll be forced to remove your pancreas again. Honestly, such a useful resource you are. Anything I take out of you will grow back eventually. However, by the Sturmbannführer's orders, the weaponisation process is to be expedited. So, stay still... my precious experiment. This is a silver scalpel after all, permanent injury may occur."

The doctor aimed the scalpel just below his eyes.

The phrase kept ringing. I watched. I was paralysed. What... what could I do?

Nothing. This was just a memory. And I understood now what was happening.

He had no tears left to give. Because he no longer had tear ducts.

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Here I sat. I'd just woke up from a long dream. Nightmares had become a regular thing.

So a dream was nice for a change.

But I, an amateur at magic, knew this was no normal dream. For merlin ambrosius was a key part of this dream, a dream of which I have no business in knowing.

"If you take up that sword, you will no longer be human." What a moronic notion. If a human was to become a God, physically, they are no longer human.

But mentally, they are still very much human.

Anything with sentience, free will and their own set of morals is considered a human mentality. Quite... bold. But it is easier than coming up with hundreds of incredibly specific terms for each group.

I watched the girl take up the sword. It must be caliburn, the sword of selection.

Taking that blade, is a fools errand. A magical tool should not decide who should be king.

Merit, experience and mentality are the things that should decide a king.

I see nothing more than a girl deceived by her dreams.

When one pursues a goal so fervently, with such blinding hope, they completely blind themselves to any chance or consequence of failure.

Merlin is a fool. But so am I. I will not judge her mentoring, or her views.

No two people share the exact same likes. Take Ruby and summer as an example. The two are very alike.

However, Ruby doesn't want to kill anyone, while summer will kill someone who is beyond redemption.

Two differing opinions of very similar people.

"Where are we?"

"And who would you be?" Two similar yet slightly different voices. I looked over to the two, their expectant gazes meeting my own blank one.

They were clearly expecting a response from myself, but I had no paper on me, merlin wasn't awake and I assumed they didn't know sign language.

I attempted to sign to the duo, they only looked at me strangely. I should have a connection with their souls, telepathy?

'Can you hear me?' The two glanced at each other before looking to me.

"We can." The two were unatturally synchronized. Twins are a strange phenomena.

'I, and my partner, found the one in red with a hole in her gut. I saved your lives, at a horrible cost. Your souls are now bound to me. I do not want to enslave you, you can leave and do whatever you want.' I was straight to the point, I wasn't going to mess around.

Of everything I hate, enslaving sentient beings is one of the most abhorrent things.

"Quite a genuine answer." The red one pointed out.

"Yes, you could've very well just lied to us." The white one filled in for her sister.

"Yet you chose to be blunt and truthful." Their assessment was fair.

"We have no one to go back to."

"We never met our parents."

"And you have claimed our lives. So we will stay with you for the time being."

"Until we find something else to pursue."

I wanted to refuse them.

I wanted them to pursue their own freedom.

But some people prefer servitude.

'Fine.' I wasn't happy with this, but it was their choice.

I looked around the room of this abandoned building. Merlin looked like she was hyperventilating.

I should wake her up. I climbed to my feet, almost falling over. The missing arm affects my balance far too much.

I walked over to the makeshift bed which merlin lay, she was shifting far too much for it to be a dream.

Couching down, I placed my fingers next to her ear, thumb touching middle finger.

A snap rang out through the room and merlin shot up, a small amount of blood leaking from her ears.

'Deep breaths.' Merlin started to do as I said, her heartbeat slowing and face relaxing.

Until she turned to me, an emphatic look on her face. Then, she hugged me.

What? Was her dream that bad?

"I'm so sorry for you hans. I... I didn't know you couldn't cry." What... that... is not something she should know.

'Explain.' Merlin pulled her head from my chest and looked me in the eyes, a stare of sadness in those eyes of hers.

"Servant's and master's are able to see the others past through dreams. You probably dreamt about my past. I... dreamt about yours. I watched as a blond, German man surgically removed your tear ducts with a silver scalpel. You struggled and writhed in pain as he did, hands twitching, nails digging into your own palms."

I see.

'I'm fine. It wasn't too painful compared to everything else.' The horrified magus looked to me, as if about to vomit. So she understands that eventually, she'll see it all.

'Let's get moving. We need to head to vacuo.' An Idea flashed through my head.

Long distance shadow movement.

At the moment it was night, making this the perfect time to attempt this.

I don't have a map at the moment, so I'll have to use my memory. It also will not be exactly like shadow movement as I need to to take the other 3 with me.

More like a portal.

I have knowledge of the god of darkness doing this, but I have never done this.

I understand the principle, you drastically shorten the distance between two points.

But how?

Am I really asking for a logical explanation to magic? It didn't have a explanation.

It just works.

A myriad of mystical symbols surrounded my arm, deep black runes.

Merlin was the most puzzled. Despite all the magic she knew, merlin didn't recognise a single grain of the magic.

That was how out of her depth she was.

The symbols hugged his arm tightly like a snake before a pitch black hole opened up in front of him.

Merlin could definitely feel the distortion of space in front of her, it wasn't hard to feel.

The most amazed were the malachite twins. Melanie and Miltia malachite. Two girls abandoned on the streets, until they were taken in by criminals.

Raised as criminals

Taught to be criminals

Treated like criminals

It was all they'd ever been.

Dead on the street. That was the situation their lives were to end in.

This man had saved them. It was an amazing feeling. To think that they were still worth saving.

Even under these conditions, they'd always spent their lives as followers. They were not leaders. And now, this mystical and powerful man had taken them with him.

A second chance for something new.

The two were incredibly grateful. However, getting their hopes up too soon is a mistake. In their line of work, people often kept facades.

It was hard to tell whether it was an act or genuine.

Such was hans günsche. He was a very private man who disliked people reading him.

Hans gestured to the portal, breaking the three women from their stupor. Merlin was the first to enter into the darkness followed by the twins before hans himself entered.

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A dead forest was where they emerged.

This... wasn't. No, this was just north of vacuo.

A branch snapped. Hans turned straight to it. The forest was dense, too dense for the other three to see anything.

But hans could see movement. The slightest amount, but movement nonetheless.

Hans glanced at merlin who seemed similarly on alert. At least she wasn't that incompetent.

This situation did concern him though, hans could smell blood in the forest. It was a heavy amount, approximately 67 people.

The dried blood across the trees unnerved the twins.

What had they gotten themselves into?

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So much rain. When had it last rained this much?

Here she stood, shovel in hand, digging her own fathers grave. Why did this happen to her?

Why her?

Her mother

Her father

The man she loved

She couldn't have anything in this... this...

This shitty world!

Dad's dead, mom's in a coma, hans is a statue. Damn it... damn it all!

The tears couldn't be told apart from the rain anymore.

"How endearing. Going out of our way to Bury dad. While yang drowns herself in more alcohol... everything's fallen apart, hasn't it?" My thoughts whispered into my ears, I truly just wanted my family...

I couldn't have that

My friends...

I couldn't have that either

The one man who took my heart...

I couldn't save him. I didn't know him. I... I never even asked him about simple things like his favourite colour.

What kind of girl am I?

I was so ignorant. Ignorant to the world. The truth.

Reality is cruel. There is no higher power. No benevolent God. No luck.

All that matters was cruelty in the world.

Cruelty is constant. Kindness is temporary.

Cruelty is a poison to the world. Humans are a poison to the world.

We ruin everything. Humans in their short lives strive for improvement regardless of how much it may affect nature. Ruining their own environment.

All that for the useless pursuit of things like immortality and perfection.

We, are hypocritical.

I wanted to prevent any children from losing their mother. But would I be willing to kill for that?

Even worse, what if the person I killed was a mother too?

Age is the greatest Cruelty. As we grow older, our bodies function slower and slower. We slowly are whittled away by time.

That, is the greatest suffering i can imagine. The old are forgotten as the next generation values the present and future over the past.

Eventually, I will be forgotten. Weiss will be forgotten. Yang will be forgotten. Blake will be forgotten.

Hans will be forgotten. We'll all be lost to the passage of time.

That is our ending.

By now, I'd already dug a deep enough hole. Well, its time to say goodbye.

I picked up my fathers lifeless body.

"I'm not your father." Those words. His last one's...

So who is my father?

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