(Licht)
Being half from here and half from there is a tilted balance.
Carrying this fire, the power of the gods, didn't grant me eternal life and youth. No. It allowed me to see the world beyond, and to be able to act as a god in both ours and the wider one.
But it's as if my chest was ripped open, a wound bleeding my life away.
I'm dying...
I can almost see my life being burnt like oil, in this fire from the beings-like-her.
Opening the gate toward their reality and their abilities is a sacrifice of my humanity.
My existence is burning and it hurts. It makes me even more bitter and angry.
I will not die alone!
The first monster we encountered was but a pupa. The pupa of the only butterfly seen in years...
Innocent at first, it quickly shown its true nature, devouring almost instantly one of my friends.
She screamed in terror, in agony for less than a second, as her body was turned inside out, and turned into the new vessel for the beast.
I released my wrath and burnt everything, unwillingly hurting my friends along.
Given the flames I can suddenly sweat, we agreed that they would stand back when I fight. At least until I'm able to focus this plasma I can exude into one direction.
Until then, the only attack I'm really able to do is basically making my body turn its close surroundings into heat and flames, high enough to melt most things.
I'm a bleak light... I'm not a full being so it's impossible for me to be as good as Licht was.
I'm envious. I'm bitter in so many ways...
Still... I defeated my first demon.
And so we moved on toward the next.
The jackal came at me more than I went at it.
I still have Rose's first memories into this world. I still feel within my flesh the pain of the bites of the first monsters she encountered, as if they had been mine as well.
I crushed that thing mercilessly.
I strangled it strong enough to break its spine. My hands released enough light, increasing in intensity and temperature, to burn it to dust in a great fiery blow.
Doing so, releasing so much of my light, I could feel my heart suffering from arrhythmia.
I could feel a growing sensation of cold within my chest and blood stream.
It's as if I was burning my life, my blood, my soul, more than I burnt the enemy.
Is that entropy?
It's probably just the curse of their world as I bound it to my life.
Grasping another world than your own, is costing so much energy, it's sould-draining...
I'm becoming the wicked one from some of dad's old tales, don't I?
Father... I miss you...
To think I never existed in your life, that your memory in mine is a fake, it pains me.
In my nightmares, I manage to return home, to you, and you don't recognise me as your daughter.
After the pain comes the realisation that it is the truth, I'm not. That brings a sharper pain waking me up.
The family I know wasn't mine. Copied memories is just the worst thing to have.
It makes you feel insane, unreal, and insignificant, worthless.
You're not even one citizen amongst millions, you're far less.
The family I know, would they still be alive, would not know me.
Being altogether nothing and something could turn you mad.
And so, not entirely insane yet, we reached the penultimate monster I could feel the presence of in the nearby region.
And in that farm littered with animal bones and skeletons, I found the first monster with a human face I would destroy. My first demon turned around before I could strike and we both gasped.
Bleue recognised me and called my name. I realised she was yours...
And I soon after saw you, asleep as if already dead.
~
I've had... Mixed feelings, to say the least, about this oiseau bleue of yours, since the beginning.
I share your childhood memories, and ergo your love for Blue is just as important for me. But I met a being that is not her, not at all.
She is not her. Even less than I am you or you are the original Rose.
Being a reconstructed being from scraps, she is even farther than that.
And she carries the smell of a dangerous being-like-her, far more than the smell of a human.
Her large eyes don't make her cuter, but less human. It's a disguise.
I couldn't trust that daiûa, that djinn who took the shape of the one dearest to us roses. There's something ominous about her.
She's an unholy creation even worse than us copies of an old human being. She's been crafted by the others, with the logics from the other world.
She's even less human than we are, which is saying something coming from me.
She's certainly less blue than we are roses.
She reeked of evil beings-like-her...
She saw that I was hesitant and undecided, but seriously considering to smit her down.
So she went next to you to hold your hand, and only turned her back on me. She waited for me to decide my next action, without plan to fight.
Obviously... She knows how to play us. And I couldn't strike only over my bitter intuitions.
I asked her what happened to you, and her. I saw the weird aspect of her healing arm.
B - She's awakening to her true self, freeing herself from her old traumatic shackles. Or, you know, something like that.
L - You're way too romantic.
B - She had a nervous breakdown, because of her past traumas. We're working them out. I helped her accepting what she is a little more, and a little what we are. She's now resting. She does need a lot of rest lately though.
My mind got very muddy listening to her. A void clouded my thoughts briefly.
There are things I don't want to think about.
I'm a little envious of this true Rose obviously.
And I could see that Bleue was... Good, to you.
L - Knowing what you are... Do you have powers?
She showed us her healing skeletal arm, and undressed her disfigured shoulder. She then told us what happened.
If that's all there is to her unholy nature, there was no point for me to bother about her. She's not human alright, but she's not a monster.
~
I wanted to use Rose to lure the last monster into a trap. Because I could already perceive that one would be a challenge.
My two huntresses friends however refused my idea, and we negotiated, including Bleue in the discussion in the end.
They didn't want for us to simply leave Rose and Bleue like that.
They have less bitter heart than me, and wanted us to give them a reassuring insurance.
But they still agreed somewhat to my plan...
These roses are as wounded and resentful as me.
But they still felt genuinely emotional about you two. My hatred was too strong in my instance, occulting some of these thoughts.
After some more discussions, we gave Bleue one of our radio, to call us if the trap was to deviate.
We could all already feel the aura of the monster in the distance. It was going to sniff us out.
I didn't plan our encounter well enough.
I didn't think it would be so soon, before we could prepare anything, and so dire...
~
As I flew toward you and her, I felt its aura stronger.
I flew, burning my last days of life, to protect you two in the end... Fuck.
I felt its desire to destroy you. A will so more sour than mine... It made me feel ridiculous.
Part of its wrath might have been intended against me, but it saw only you. It could almost utter your name in the air as it flew.
I felt a wrath and an insane desire to kill inside that thing, so far beyond mine... But not entirely different to mine...
A painful mirror of my intentions was closing in.
A desire to destroy the other race.
The species... is almost the same...
Beings-like-her are more humans than we would like to believe, or want to admit.
And I chose to become more like them to better fight them.
Only as I reached the end, I began to notice the irony and futility.
But wrath prevailed.
I arrived shrouded in the light I was about to consume.
I met my fate, and so did it.
The reasonable ones of both races want to avoid war, and they survive.
But both of us, daiûa and me, wanted to gut each other out, unleashing a storm of wrath.
To go all out, to destroy the very existence of the other.
A catharsis...
To feel alive, as we survive and overcome the other's blows.
We blew away each other with everything we had, without any concern but for ourselves and sliding emotions.
For the desperate ones, what is left but to find meaning in one's death?
The fires of despair burnt my clothes and my body, as well as the other one.
I saw that we brought desolation over the city as we fought, but it was meaningless.
What mattered was our yell that we're alive, that we want to survive, and that we want to destroy the scape-goat of all our misery ahead.
What mattered is that the ones with despair and anger in their heart found the logical meaning of their life in that fight to the death.
I exhausted myself, but a part of me was soothed by the suffering we both felt.
My light needed to recover for a minute as my body failed.
The shadow of myself was similar.
The huntresses came in and I lost another friend.
We killed the demon that could have been me...
I'm exhausted Rose, I feel just like you...
~
You almost died from the shadow as it melted your inner self under its aura.
We're lying down side by side just outside the city.
You will get better I say with a hoarse voice, tilting my head away from you afterward.
I feel bad, looking at you...
Huntress and Bleue are looking at us with worry in their eyes.
We won't die today I repeat.
You have much left to live for. And Bleue is not ready to let you go.
It's not over Rose. Not yet...
L - I'm sorry, Huntress, but you will have to wait for another day before you can eat my heart and take over our light.
H - There's no hurry. I don't think I want to take that burden over anymore. The world can live on without a Licht.
L - I think there should always be one Licht... Even if she's not to follow my path, only to act as a deterrent, or a protector, against the future false gods to come.
H - I'll think about it then. Now rest. Your skin is still in terrible shape from the burns.
Rest... I should rest...
I'm not dying today.
My pain never ceased ever since god chewed on my feet.
I've been tiring of living since then...
I'm glad I could help a blue rose nonetheless.
Huntress watches me having my last breath, the light vanishing from my eyes.
~