A single drop of liquid fell into a red puddle that ran endlessly. The ripples mirrored the thumping hum that filled the mind of a young boy. He looked forward with a blurred gaze, only to be met with darkness.
The same darkness that replaced the whites of his eyes.
Each drop of liquid that fell sounded like a hypnotic echo in his ears, calling him to the back of his mind, a place that would be safe. A place that wasn't here. His breath rolled off his lips like hot steam against the cold of the room, as if battling against the heat that he felt, heat that ripped through his skin like hot iron.
Each time he foolishly chose to move, the iron wires around him sliced at his skin, so unable to tell how long time passed or whether his eyes were open or closed. The boy remained suspended in the air within an inch of his life.
What does it mean to live?
To chase fleeting things like desires or truths...
Are we born to simply repeat the same act in mindless torment?
Birth.
Breath.
Stimulation.
And Death.
The thoughts ran through his mind like frames of an old movie. A mind fractured like a broken mirror of the boy he used to be--one that didn't need to endure this Hell. With each breath he took, a smell fouler than his twisted mind would ever think of ran through his nostrils.
A smell that was closer to a poison, one that burned through his lungs as he coughed out blood into the darkness, blood that hit the scarlet puddle under him with a cold echo. He looked down below him at a small object he could barely make out in the dark. Beautiful rose-red hair now wilting to a deep white as he smiled at the irony of it all.
One who could create life, subjected to this…
The blood below him gathered from the edges of the dried circle it laid within, giving form to something barely resembling life in the slightest; a ball of skin—a creature. The boy's bleeding ceased as his vision blurred at the sight of it. The creature looked up at what it had come from. Wires plastered through a grey box of darkness, piercing and wrapping around the boy.
The one who created him.
At that moment, the wires slithered away from the boy, ripping through his skin, leaving fresh blood as his body fell to the ground. The beast watched the ruby liquid escape the boy's body before coming eye to eye with its creator.
Eyes as white as the hair that covered them.
What did it mean...for something like it to be born, to-
"Don't die yet, Kimela, there's so much you need to….experience," the boy muttered, dragging his frayed arm, skeletal and scarred. His face squirmed from the burning pain to offer the creature to take part in the scarlet elixir that leaked from within him.
"Eat and live.."
Like the sound of the blood that rang through his ears, his voice echoed off the walls of the room. The last he heard was his own voice's plea before his eyes closed and his breathing ceased. The creature slithered across the metallic prison to the boy's arm. It called to him almost as if instinctual.
What is death?
As the creature began to grow in size and its giant fangs made themselves known…
To survive. The creature ate.
Stimulation.
Blood violently rushed through the creature's body, taken over by a maelstrom of sensations: memories, desires, pain, knowledge... Life. The blood dared to boil through its skin like built pressure waiting to burst, yet in a single moment, it all stopped.
Breath.
Footsteps echoed through the crimson wasteland, through the moist heat and storms of sand swirling around as a sickly boy with white hair wandered through the wasteland. The creature took on another form.
It took in sounds that many took years to grow accustomed to, like musical hums. The sharp chime of blades, the oppressive thunder of explosions, even the sound of bones snapping, echoed all around it. With every stride it took, it found more and more bodies.
A familiar sensation called to it.
The sensation to feed upon the elixir.
To live.
A single body, just like the one it was presented with by its creator. The creature's starving gaze fell upon it, the body of a student with the mark of a boot engraved in their neck. The crimson elixir leaked from within, and in turn, the creature continued to feast.
Yet, it wasn't enough.
When would it be enough?
More and more, the creature continued wandering the endless wasteland. Sounds and voices filled its mind, more and more memories. Its form evolved and, in turn, so did its knowledge of such.
Curse Series.
Anima.
Reiju.
Battle.
Life.
It knew it all.
With fangs like a lion and a body closer to what some called a dragon, the creature feasted on bodies, ever plentiful as the oppressive grey sky above found itself, victim to the crimson rays of the sun.
Heat.
A familiar feeling radiated through the creature as it kept evolving, with the minds and hearts of those it devoured. With each meal, the sensation grew. A growing pain. A burning pain. Like a boiling river that had no end, the creature shuttered from the pain. Its vision grew faint in the sun. The sensation was familiar. Was this what the one who made him feel like before.
As the thought entered his mind, and its breath had come to a halt.
Like a grenade with its pin released.
The creature burst.
______________________________________________________________________________________
"So, looks like Prota set a bit of a trap for us and the others, I'm guessing?"
Akihiko looked towards Tara with an intrigued expression on his face. His voice was warm like midday in spring as it reached Tara's ears. Tara gave him a nod, letting her hand rest atop her mask. Like crystalline scales of light, the mask that rested over the face of Tara. Their hair slowly beginning to shorten behind the frame of the cloak and armor they wore.
"I would say that I warned you, Akihiko, but instead, I think it's best to emphasize the fact that I am usually right," Tara said.
Despite the critical hypnotic tone of his boyish voice, Akihiko couldn't help but hear the warmth laced between Tara's words punctuated by the satisfying click of wire filled the air and ceased as quickly as it came.
"I'm thinking... I might play along for a bit," Akihiko said, continuing to walk forward, keeping his hands behind his head in confidence that nothing would come if only for the fact nothing had passed them since landing.
Tara raised a brow at Akihiko's words; his gaze moved to dust swirling in the distance. A battle that Akihiko appeared to have ignored.
"You want to test them?"
Akihiko turned to Tara, changing the look on his face to imitate something oh so familiar to himself. "I do consider myself a teacher, Tara," he followed his words up with a chuckle.
"More like a teacher of how to run blindly into danger for people who don't matter in the grand scheme of things... I'll give you points for that impression of those Superbian tutors we had at least."
A smile like the sun above fell upon Akihiko's face despite the wording. He turned to keep walking, feeling a tremor in the distance.
"As a prince, it's only natural I'd care. We've had enough Sin's who barely care for their people as is right, Tara."
"Perhaps," Tara replied.
______________________________________________________________________________________
The dust finally settled as sweat dripped from Nabi's face. Bodies laid all around her as she fell back onto the rocky earth without a flinch. Her gaze flickered back to the one behind her that she managed to find through her carnage.
Nabi let out a sigh as she looked up at the crimson sun above before the thought hit her. Unable to move, for the time being, she looked back behind her to check the one that she had been fighting for so long to protect.
The black tattoo that made its home along his face had vanished, and the scar on his face was fully healed. For a single instant under the hot sun, a smile rested on Nabi Itami's face before resetting back to before when she remembered the sight of him.
Bright golden eyes enveloped with black sclera and, of all things—A horn.
"It's begun... and there's nothing I can do anymore...Sorry, Guisei," a name that had never left her lips in his presence came from within her. Nabi slammed her arm into the crimson earth in frustration, cracking it.