"Don't run away from what you're afraid of. Run toward what you are not."
One by one, scattered lights illuminated themselves in the once dark room.
Flickering gently, about to go out, he saw the life he was living played in stereo from across the mirror.
"..."
"And try to achieve the unachievable… Attempt to reopen the Rift to Crestia."
And so I bet it against Death.
Looking across the mirror, something he had refused to even acknowledge for months, its existence stung like cruel irony. From the other side, he remembered that whenever he looked in the mirror, there was always someone beside him looking as well.
That I'd either find a way out, or I'd go out on my own terms.
A bet. That's what he called his hopeless pursuit rushing forward against the fate he despises so much. The fact that he'd come this far at all was nothing short of a miracle.
Most would have called Cobalt a genius.
"But all I am's an absolute nutcase."
The fact that he'd come this far… It wasn't a miracle.
"It's a testament to my insanity."
Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. The floors of this place had winded around themselves in a twisted hellscape which brought him closer and closer to pure insanity. He had no where else to go, and he had lost all desire to do anything else.
If anything had taught him that lesson, it was Nick, Hydeira, and Galli.
"..."
Cobalt looked deeply into himself from across the mirror. His hair, combed and trimmed. His collared shirt, buttoned and tidy. His sweater, removed of all the lint. For the first time since he had locked himself in the Solitary Confinement known as the lab, he looked… Nice. He wanted to look at least presentable for when they found him.
Running away…
Is that the legacy I want to have…?
Tying his outfit together, he took a dark red ribbon from the empty workshop table, and held it around the back of his neck. Lifting his collar up, he wrapped it around him and tied it together at the front, in the shape of a bow. Looking up with a solemn, almost twisted smile which juxtaposed the dark circles around his eyes, he finished his thought while pulling the two ends of ribbon.
Two strings of fate…
『Absolutely.』
* * * * * * * *
Leaping through the air, his whole body ignited in an external heat.
All those faceless creatures of hell were distracted.
He fell down from above, catching a foreign arm between his own, and twisted it down between ropes.
With his feet, landing haphazardly and recklessly between the feet of a cultist, he brazenly twisted his body around over itself.
Between roped hands and between roped feet, two crimson cloaks clashed downwards in stereo.
And rolling daringly out of the two bodies' trajectories, Cobalt caught himself on his sliding foot, eyeing the two cloaked heads which smashed against each other.
But Cobalt wasn't the only one with this idea.
Pieces of torn limb and fabric rained down in missiles of ash and flame.
"Goddamn it's hot!"
Kicking the dust away from his sprinting body, he ran as far away from the oncoming explosions as he could.
With just two ropes, he'd managed to down three fanatic cultists. But between bursts of flame and death, the intruder easily worked up ten times the killstreak.
"—Heh."
Between fluttery and adrenaline-surged breaths, he wasn't able to contain the nervous and excited laugh boiling up within him.
But he hardly had the words to describe the hellish free-for-all he was caught in the middle of.
His wildly racing and yet blank mind could only turn itself over and let his feet do all the work.
Seeing a cliff directly ahead, he slid his two arms between a jagged rock, practically swinging himself 90° around it with his ropes.
He felt like a lunatic prisoner just barely escaping an all out brawl of a prison break.
But if anyone was going to make it out of this hell, it was going to be Cobalt.
Hearing whooshes of fluttering cloaks around him, his wild eyes searched for the culprit.
They're just now catchin' on, huh?
Cobalt must have been valuable to them.
But whatever their reason for keeping him contained here, he was already determined to leave, regardless of the cost.
"So all your effort's in vain!!!"
Using a rock to halt his momentum yet again, he stopped on a dime, watching a fluttery red cloak whirl right past his poised body.
Now!!!
He leapt out at once and clung to its back, holding it, too, between his ropes.
He spiraled out of control with it, feeling the haphazard sting of an aimless knife seeking to release Cobalt's ropes from its floating body.
But he shifted his weight against it every time.
Even though the cultist was the one with the knife, he had the upper hand in every way.
Clumsily losing its balance against the strangling force of Cobalt's ropes, its dipping feet skidding across the dirt, unable to gain a foothold.
"Hah!"
Against the cultist's futile attempts to cut the rope, Cobalt gritted his teeth in a wild grin, sliding his feet against the dirt to slow down its momentum.
His foot caught against a rock and poised himself against it.
The cultist, spiraling out of control, flung aimlessly like a kite against Cobalt's restraints.
The hell—?
It flew maniacally like a weightless paper bag fluttering against the wind.
But to say that this thing was weightless…
It kept reaching its knife downward against the rope, but simultaneously taking off like a rocket into the wind, its wild movements had no coherence, continuously waving its knife against its own force.
Cobalt pulled even harder with his ropes, but he wasn't sure if this ghoulish figure even had a consciousness to choke out of it.
"..."
Cobalt's wild hair flew all about in front of his face in tandem with the crimson cloak which flew in just about every direction. The force of this strange cultist's propellants into the wind, mixed with the wild explosions surrounding them, created this chaotic ambiance which barely kept Cobalt's feet—which were caught in between rocks—from flying off with it into the wind.
It was locked in his ropes, its neck tangled like it was hanging from the gallows.
There was no letting go of this prey.
He bit the side of his mouth in desperation.
He could outsmart these ghouls… But could he beat one in strength too?
If he didn't find out, he'd be a fish caught in a flying eagle's mouth in just a few seconds.
He pulled relentlessly at it between his hands until the cultist's frantic head was between his bicep and chest. Struggling against the random boundless forces of the cultist's propulsions, he just barely managed to squeeze its tangled neck in a crevice he could manage.
"Ya aren't worth the trouble!!!" He spat against the violent wind while reaching his bounded arms out for the cultist's knife.
"-!!!"
It kept swinging as if Cobalt's hands weren't even there.
Does it even see me-?!
One thing was certain…
This thing can't be human.
He didn't have to win a fight against a human. He just had to win a fight against a monster.
"You just made this a lot easier for me!!"
He reached out for its wrist and grabbed it, stopping the ceaseless seizings of the desperate creature.
Cold.
He grunted to himself, struggling to overpower its grip on the knife.
"Let go, you freak!! I'm saving both of us here!!!"
Saving both of them. That almost made Cobalt laugh.
But throughout the death-gripped struggle, Cobalt now barely found himself with the upper hand.
Now!!!
Smacking its fingers away, he juggled the flying knife between his own sweaty fingers before just barely latching onto it in his slippery grip.
But his feet were losing traction.
The almost lifeless cadaver of this strange ghoulish creature still flung aimlessly like a paper bag in the wind. It was horrifying—like its entire body had gone into ragdoll mode.
But catching his slipping feet against jagged rocks, he confidently clasped the knife, ready to end this struggle once and for all.
"Go fly off on your own!! You're sure as hell not takin' me with you!!!"
With two sweaty hands, he spun the knife around to face it against the two of them, and as quickly and with as much precision as he could, dug it into the cultist's squirming chest.
Against the chilling sound of screeching metal, he drug it up along its lifeless "ribcage" and through the threads of rope, slashing them off the prey they'd latched onto.
Finally feeling his wrists be unbound from each other, and unbound from the wild ghoul, he released the squirming cloaked head from his grip and watched it fly into the wind.
Gritting his teeth, his bottom smashed down into the dirt. It sent a shockwave up through his whole body, but he didn't have time to focus on the sharp sensation piercing his bottom, spine, and head. Without missing a beat, he slashed the rope between his feet, finally freezing himself with the ash-colored knife he'd stolen from the "tubeman ghoul" formerly known as a cultist.
And watching that ghoul-
KRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHH
Sniped out of the air with an explosive missile…
Cobalt watches its tattered cloth and ashen limbs fall to the ground…
The sandy hand that had struggled with Cobalt's own…
Suddenly evaporated from the earth.
Looking towards the source of the attack, Cobalt gulped face to face with what looked like an orange blur.
He couldn't make out any other features, but that didn't matter.
All that mattered was…
This way.
Bolting away from the walking MRL, he once again kicked up sand and dust with his bold feet which charged towards the cliffside as fast as they could.
Tiki torches illuminated themselves at his left and right as he ran by, as if welcoming him in to whatever this path had to offer him.
But the smoke obscured whatever that could be.
As the missiles slowed down their intensity, and clouds of ash and smoke lifted off the ground skywards, his skidding feet stopped him before he could enter…
"A cave…"
Right in front of him, the destination for dozens of tiki torches which had lit for him and him alone, was an abyssal dark cave entrance, lightlessly welcoming him in…