Lieren heaved for breath, pushing against the ground and running farther and faster than he ever could.
A bead of sweat fell from his cheeks.
A deep darkness surrounded him, trying to devour the boy.
Lieren was shining, a bright light enveloping his legs, arms, torso. It protected him, kept the darkness away, but not the threat.
As he ran, more and more of the darkness began gnawing at him, eating at his resistance, diminishing what he had. However, no matter how strong or relentless the darkness was, it never reached him, always just barely an inch away.
Still, though, that fact did not help settle Lieren's mind, instead making him more and more conscious of his weaknesses, his vulnerabilities.
The darkness crept up his frame, covering his skin and vision filling him with dread and fear and loss like no other.
And so, he ran—faster than he ever had, faster than he ever could. Something was changing about him—rearranging—altering him beyond his limited knowledge.
He began to grow blind, his vision devoured by the darkness, his mind corrupted by ut's abyss. His eyes began to darken, turning ebony, then pure black.
A light, bright and powerful, pierced Lieren's retinas, eliminating the dark, murky black that had corrupted it.
Again, he was changing. However, this time was a familiar change, a form that he knew, a face that he could recognize.
Eventually, the darkness eating at him began to leave his body, though it stayed at his surroundings, a grim reminder of his mistakes and failures.
A shadowed figure echoed from the darkness.
"So, you're the one. Don't disappoint me now, foolish boy."
Lieren whipped his head around, barely able to catch a glimpse of the sly grin plastered on the shadowed figure's face.
"…?!" Lieren shot up on his bed, cold sweat dripping down his back. He was breathing heavily, like he had just ran a marathon.
Though, that couldn't be true, Lieren thought to himself grimly, after all… His mind jumped back to that night, her body, and those eyes.
Lieren hurled at his side, emptying his stomach. He could still remember the blood on Minasaki's face, her arms, and on her clothes, staining her pure image forever burnt onto his mind.
It was only then that Lieren noticed where he was, the bed he was on, the table with a vase and flower at his side, and the curtain-like partition around the foot of his bed. He also noticed his clothing. It was green and light, sort of thin, but not see-through. A hospital gown, Lieren thought, reminded of the times he went to the hospital when he got injured.
There was also something else, on his chest.
Lieren peeked on his clothes, and he immediately noticed the branching scar starting from where his heart should be to his shoulders like the branches of a tree. The mark on his chest wad almost circular, with a rough-looking outer rim. From what Lieren could tell, it looked like the wave-like exterior of the circle shout out a piece of the heavens, a bolt of lightning to his left shoulder to leave their mark on him. Lieren could not tell how, but he felt spite and fury etched onto his skin, marking him.
Lieren rested his back to the soft bed below him. Although he had just slept for some hours, as far as Lieren could tell, he was tired, exhausted, and fatigued. His mind was a mess and it felt like his body was not his own. The nightmare didn't help either.
Lieren sighed.
"Tomorrow, I'll leave it all to the me of tomorrow." Unconsciousness dawned on him once more, and Lieren began to drift into the land of dreams and nightmares.
◇◆◇◆◇
Kronesta stood on the outer side of the curtains that served as a partition fro the patient and the rest of the room.
Busy chattering of patients, doctors, and nurses filled the room, livening what could called as one of the most injury-filled room in the country of Hamaha—the intensive care room for the public. Kronesta flipped through the reports of the investigation on the Basford Home of the Unwanted twelve hours after the other knights' arrival. Unlike Kronesta, the nearest knights stationed at the outskirts of Hamaha were more than an hour away. This gave Kronesta time to investigate the crime scene herself, without the intervention of the Knight's Order or the military.
She used her extra hour to investigate the place more thoroughly, examining attics and basements for any possible traces that her archrival could have left, but, like all her other investigations, she had come up empty. However, the report on her hand gave her further confirmation about her past suspicions and speculations.
"Charm-type command spell: Cursed Words." Kronesta read the fine print of the report in her hand aloud, imprinting it onto her mind.
Kronesta's mind went back to the fallen people in the orphanage. They were dead, she thought, though no signs of a struggle or any kind of combat was present anywhere. There were some broken equipment on the second floor, along with a couple of expertly-hidden tracks along with the purposeful concealment of an unknown mana signature, mostly likely from the Marionette himself. There were a couple of files from different caretakers and children missing. It seems that they were trying to hide the presence of more than just one person, somebody other than the Marionette. From what the investigation team dug up, an Adornment had just occurred the day before, meaning that there are various suspects, possibly connected to the military, government, and the still unknown research institute present during the time.
A dead end, Kronesta predicted, having experienced the seemingly flawless anonymity that the Marionette exuded with ease time and time again. She sighed, set the report down, then opened up the curtain behind her.
A boy, thin and weak-looking, lay in bed, unconscious. Cold sweat, Kronesta noticed, lots of it. She took a seat by the bed and poked the boy's cheeks, a tinge of electricity on her finger.
"Nah~" The boy groaned, still asleep, and lay on his side, sleeping some more.
Kronesta raised her brow. Intriguing, she remembered the previous night. Kronesta had watched, marveled, and paled when her most powerful spell, filled with her hate and resentment for the Marionette, get repelled by some unknown invisible force. It couldn't repel all of Kronesta's magic, which reassured her somewhat, but it was enough, to diminish it to the point where the boy could survive the attack, albeit barely.
Now, however, the boy did not exhibit the same kind of resistance that he did before.
"Is it conditional?" Kronesta questioned. "Maybe it's some kind of instinctual spell? No, that couldn't be. Even the most talented nobles can only make that kind of spell after a year's worth of extensive training. Then, an intrinsic spell, then? Possibly. Even a commoner could be born with one, if they're lucky." Kronesta eliminated possibility after possibility, trying to figure out the mystery of the boy's mysterious power. It irked her for some reason, like an itch she can't quite reach.
A minute or so after she began ruminating, the boy awoke, blinking rapidly, trying to accustom himself to the lighting. Then, he grabbed the blanket by the foot of the bed, then pulled it towards himself, laying back down.
Kronesta sent a bolt of electricity to the boy's nape.
"Nyah…!!" The boy flinched, his body reflexively flexing. As he did, Kronesta spotted a scar on the boy's shoulders, then went cold.
The boy whipped his head around, fresh tears on his eyes. "What gives…?!" He yelled, clutching his nape and rubbing it.
Kronesta put one leg over the other, placing her hands on her top knee and straightening her back.
"I have some questions for you, Lieren."