With a pained expression, trying to lift himself with one hand, and the other covering a voided stomach, Gorr was seeing yet another reality in his lifetime.
Roaring echoes of laughter, reverberating inside of an echo chamber.
Gorr, gasping for air, said, "What a breathtaking present you have sent me! It reminds me a lot like my own!"
Darwin's vision fading in and out, his legs wobbling, the sense of grip fleeting.
With his Reishi depleted, and his injuries resurfacing, the will inspiring Darwin has been brought to the ground, motionless.
Harribel ran up to Darwin, grasping his head with her palms, "Darwin..."
It was something she instinctively did, something which hadn't resurfaced at all till now. Like a wife caring for her husband, she caressed his head. Though, the difference being that she was stoic the entire time, seemlessly calm.
Appacci, Sung-sun and Rose, shocked at this revelation, they came back to their senses asking themselves if there was something wrong with Harribel at the moment.
However, unresponsive, her vision and focus was sorely on the man laying bedridden with his head resting on her iron armoured thighs.
"L—La—La—Lady Harribel?!" Appachi approached Harribel with trembling hooves.
What made her do such a thing? What was behind her gaze? Everyone including Appachi thought of these questions, questions that would be troubling to answer.
Then there was Figgs who had a different train of thought. With a sigh, Figgs commented at this ordeal, "He isn't regenerating… Well anyways, goodbye."
He left, his disgusted expression alluding to what he saw was cringe.
"I have take him back to the Menos Forest," Harribel insisted, she noticeably saw the weird streaks of contorted expressions coming from Appachi and Rose. Sung-sun was just pondering in silence.
"Lady Harribel, are you really caring for this random Adjucha who met you on a whim?!" Appacci said dejectedly and with a slight pout.
Slightly curling her brows, Harribel replied, "He feels... familiar… I want to get to know him more that's all."
However, her once pale complexion now had a tinge of rosey, betraying the thoughts of everyone around her.
With a light smile, she reminisced on a past conversation, a conversation she had a tug pull at her non-existent heart.
—-
Looking at Darwin's indifferent expression, she felt sadden as to what felt inevitable, she thought to herself.
'Another senseless Hollow…'
"Haven't thought much to it. I usually kill those that are hostile to me. However, I give the opportunity to the weaker ones to flee."
With a sudden spark in her mind, she looked at him again with a renewed smile. Though the smile was hidden behind her mask. With a tinge of redness apparent on her face, she mulls over his words and said to herself, 'What a weird Hollow.'
—-
Gorr who had strength to spare, fleeing to the opposite side with his limping figure. Coughing continuously, he splattered a chunk of his blood on the platform. Quivering in his voice, he said, "We shall meet again."
'Even if she wasn't here. I would've let you go. A potential rival… How exciting!'
"Remember me! Gorr the Dominator!" Lifting his quaking arms up, his courage and honour lay bared on his fist.
Returning to her senses, Harribel carried him in a princess carry awaiting for Muro De Regla to release its walls.
Time passes in a blur…
Muro De Regla eventually opened its walls, the platform beneath started to rotate clockwise.
Harribel gestured to jump to the safe borders, she and the others moved together.
"It's dangerous for us to be here any longer, we should return to Morada Relajante." Distressed from the Second Stratos difficulty, Sung-sun insisted.
Harribel nodded, "That is indeed what I have thought as well."
Appacci and Rose unanimously agreed.
The group dashed back to their base with hurried expressions.
What felt like a century was just a flash of light.
Awoken, struggling to lift his weighted eyelids, Darwins stood up from the stone cold floor beneath him. He observed everywhere, looking for clues about this location.
'This is Harribel's quarters.'
'Strange… Why did she save me?' A question that gripped his chest, he didn't know why, he felt troubled.
With puzzling thoughts, he first tries to reminisce on what he had done for Harribel.
He senses a strong but calm presence nearby, soothing he thought.
'Ah, it's Sung-sun's presence.'
With a pronounced sigh, stiff from his restful sleep, he moved outside the room to greet Sung-sun and ask for intel from what had happened after he had fallen.
"Oh your up." Giving Darwin a silent smile.
Darwin asked, "So what happened to the others."
She replied, "Nothing really, it's just that Harribel, Rose and Appacci spot an unconscious Figgs directly outside."
Finding the information quite intriguing, Darwin ran outside to the courtyard and in front of the front gate.
Harribel and the others saw Darwin and Sung-sun approaching them.
Getting straight to the point, she asked Darwin's opinion about the matter.
"This is Figgs' unconscious body, him appearing here without anybody else is extremely perplexing,"
Darwin also finds the situation troubling, he said, "He doesn't seem injured beyond help. He can return back to his natural state. And that is what is truly odd."
Appacci felt extreme distain for Figgs, but that was before he helped recover her sanity in Second Stratos. Rose, Sung-sun felt included in Appachi's thoughts of appreciation.
"He helped me, so I feel abliged to help him." A straight forward and reasonable answer from Darwin, the other four nodded as well.
Appacci however had a slight feeling that something was amiss.
Darwin asked the worried Appacci what she had in mind. She responded, "I don't think we should tend to him."
'Truthfully speaking, this is an extraordinary situation.'
"Bring him into Morada Relajante," Harribel said, gesturing Sung-sun to carry him in.
—-
Darwin was sitting beside the unconscious silhouette laying down on the uncomfortable floor. Sprawled with his furred body, Darwin fell into silence, meditating on many things.
After a couple of hours, the laying figure woke up in a fright.
"What happened to me?!" Figgs asked, sweat streaking across his figure.
Darwin stood up and said, "I don't know."
'I guess he is fine… Well this is the least I can do since Harribel had carried me here…'
Just as he was about to walk off towards the front gate, making his exit to the destination he had thought of.
An unspecting fist launched at Darwin's back, sending him flying and crashing onto the rough sand.
Confused, shocked even, Darwin gazes back at Figgs as he leaped in front of him. Darwin asked, "Why?"
Figgs responded, heartless in his predatory tone, "You shouldn't trust someone that easily."
Darwin, trying to stand up again, staggered entirely.
'What?!'
As time flew by, the feeling in his nerves cuts, his autonomy over his body gradually dissipating.
"What did you do to me?!" Feeling extremely tired, zoning in and out, Darwin asked with a strained voice.
Figgs kicked at Darwin's chest with extreme force sending him hurdling many metres to the stone walls the surrounds this castle, Morada Relajante.
He could dodge it but there was something stopping him from ever moving. He felt like a lamb in the chopper, waiting for its next turn.
Darwin laying in the midst of rubble, he couldn't move a muscle.
"No one will save you."