Story:Kings of Strife/Part 55

Part Fifty-Five
Her body went limp in his arms after her eyes lost their light. Vik could not tear his eyes off Rosaria’s face. He waited for her to move again, and for everything to go back to how it was before, some vague, shining time of before – but there was only the after, and Rosaria stayed both limp and rigid in his hands, and her blood chilled him. The wind chilled him, and his tears flowed down his face.

Vik did not move for some time. He only realized that time had passed when he realized he could hear voices suddenly, when before there had been only the silence of death and the distant sound of battle. The unceasing battle felt a kind of living to him now, likely the only kind he had left. The voices he recognized, but could not name, could not identify with face in his mind, not while Rosaria’s face still held his in its gaze. She really was a beautiful young girl, and looked so much like their mother. As people he knew spoke around him, and a hand jostled his shoulder, he wondered what his mother’s face must have looked like when she was dying. He had been unable to look upon her then, and never lifted the gentle sheet that his father had placed over her in the shadows of her last moments. Had he been wrong for that? Was this some punishment for it? Or was this punishment for his life so far, and his refusal to look into the face of the dead? He was listening now. He would accept the dead as dead. The dead would not forgive him or judge him or even return. They were dead and he was still alive for a reason.

“It’s shell-shock. He isn’t moving. He's barely breathing.”

“Who is that, in his arms?”

“She looks like him, doesn't she? She’s Nneonian. Has to be. See the hair? What is one of them doing here?”

“I saw another Nneonian earlier, before the shelling. In the enemy. That isn’t Inusian forces.”

“You couldn’t tell that from the cloaks?”

“What the – is she okay?! Leader Posmos!”

There was a running, a shuffling, and a moaning. More moans. Was someone hurt? Vik could not move still. Maybe another had died. Maybe he was going to be captured, then tortured. Not killed. He did not know why but he knew he would not die here. That would be too easy. He wanted nothing more than to disappear, but he did not deserve to. He killed her. It must have been for a reason. She could not have died pointlessly. She was more than that.

“The earth – the earth breaks apart, and the goddess has left us behind!”

“…What?”

“Oh God. She’s dead.”

“I know,” Vik murmured, still unmoving, still aching, still yearning to scream.

“She’s not breathing. She’s… she’s bleeding. Leader…”

“Did you hear what she said? That was… I’ve never heard Venu talk like that before.”

“The earth splits apart…”

“She was shot, then she landed wrong when we fell. Trius found her.”

“…Yeah. I…”

“Did you just…?”

Vik heard the heaviness of breath that might have been his own.

“Trius! Are you alright? Shit! His wound… His wound is getting worse.”

“The battle is over. The castle has fallen, and Trius… Leader, what do we do?”

“…”

“…”

Vik felt a hand around his neck, then two. They tightened, and his vision faltered for a moment. The grip was suddenly so tight he could feel it making deep impressions on his neck, and a bead of blood escaped the pulsing scar above his eyebrows. When his vision returned, Vik breathed hard like he had when dunked in the waters of the Queen’s Gulf, when he had to swim miles to return to his family home, unbidden. He felt as cold now as he had that day. He wanted to trace the imprints of the choke on the skin of his throat, but Rosaria was still in his arms, and his jostling had made her eyes move, and her arm fell down to her side, limp. The loss of her touch made him wail out audibly in pain.

“So you are alive, Scarface. Oh, God… You weren’t moving… I was so worried…”

The recognition came to him finally and too late, and he shivered again. Looking up to the person in front of him, his own tears rolled down his cheeks. Not a drop of blood fell from the scar over his left eye. “K-Karilyn…?”

It really was her. She was kneeling in front of him, her face buried in her hands and her shoulders gently rocking with tears. Was she crying for Rosaria, too? Did she know anything? Vik lowered his head again, and forced himself to close his eyes. Everything hurt, and he could not move. How he wanted just to lie down next to Rosaria and sleep for the rest of his days…

She seemed to know better than to ask him any questions. Karilyn’s face, for once, was strained and red with emotion. The shade of her cheeks almost matched her hair. “I’m sorry, Vik. I’m so sorry… for whatever’s happened. But I can’t help but be glad that you’re alive, even with everything that’s happened…”

“My name,” he croaked, looking down at Rosaria’s extended neck, eyes wide outside of his control. “You called me by my name.”

Karilyn continued and seemed not to notice. “We lost one of the Corps when we stormed the castle. They had to leave his body there… when the reinforcements came, all those other airships, they attacked the castle first, and it crumbled… Then it looks like we lost another when it fell…” Another shell fell, in the east part of the city, and the ground shook. Karilyn whimpered, but pushed herself up from the ground slowly, on buckling knees. He noticed blood on the hem of her dress. “Blondie said you lived, and I believed him. I always believed it. Come on. We have to get out of here.” She stepped to Vik’s side, gingerly staying away from Rosaria and keeping her feet in the spaces between corpses. Her cold bare hand brushed against his shoulder. “Come with me. Please.”

“No,” Vik whispered. “No. I can’t. I can’t go. I can’t leave her.”

The voices of the others was growing distant and more indignant, and Karilyn glanced from Vik to the party nearby, beneath the wreckage of a building. The shells were growing closer. “Come on, Vik, please! We have to get out of here! Blondie said he found a ship nearby we can escape on… but we don’t have much time. This city is still swarming with enemies. We’ve lost.”

He shuddered and felt the hands on his neck again, keeping him from speaking. He tried to bypass it anyway, and felt the veins in his neck pulsing and bulging with pressure, and then his eyes burned with fire once again. Not this fire – not this pressure. He clenched his eyes shut and looked off to the side, thanking whatever god would listen that he managed to control his eyes before the fire swelled from them and erased the last thing he shared blood with in this world.

Then he heard the voice of the man that killed his world – and he dropped Rosaria’s body onto the sea of corpses below.

“Oh, this is better than anything I could have ever predicted. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”

That voice – that voice!

The fire would have filled his veins again, would have killed and ruined a city and a woman again, but Vik saw the silhouette of the false him before he even got a chance to close his eyes, and this time the specter had red hair, red like the fires that were weaker than him. Karilyn. He already knew what would happen if he let himself give in to the searing rage of the Crystal and the fires it had nurtured within him, had learned that lesson all too cruelly. So Vik raged, he writhed, he screamed in blind fury and pain, but he kept himself on his knees and he kept his fires inside. He could tell from Karilyn’s yelp – so distant in his hearing, almost muffled – that the fire had protruded from his body just like before, rising like an extension of every follicle of hair on his body.

Was this what it was like to unleash his power and control it? Vik had to tell his body to breathe and had to force his eyes to blink. The black flames peaked and troughed in time with his own breathing, and he felt himself immediately grow more exhausted when he breathed too hard, too fast, and the flames crested many feet higher than his body’s peak. He had to force them to fall, to rise along with his natural rhythm, to be calm and in control. He bent over like an animal, protecting Rosaria’s body instinctively, growling and letting out pitch black smoke with every exhale.

The faker known as Kaiser walked in front of him once again in the obsidian suit of metallic armor that Vik knew him best in. Despite his battle-ready state, he showed nothing but an excited, casual smile, and his arms were crossed across his chest without any security or preparation for a fight. He looked Vik in his eyes and laughed as he advanced, walking with the ease of a man in no danger at all.

“This was all a lesson to teach you, but I never thought it would prove this gratifying and this entertaining. I really, honestly thank you for this. It has been a wonderful ride, almost a year in the making.”

“You,” Vik growled, his teeth grating and gnashing together. He shook and tears of righteous hatred ran down his eyes before evaporating when exposed to his skin. “You did this. You brought her here.”

“That’s right,” the Black Knight of Ouroboros said, raising a hand and letting it fall to his side as he spoke. “I didn’t kill her. Sorry about that little lie… but, well, I guess this isn’t that different from the truth, principally.” He stopped and shifted his weight to one hand, letting his hand rest on the opposite hip. “Whether I did the deed or you did… in the end, you killed your entire family, Child of Flame.”

“Family?” Vik heard Karilyn beside him, and saw her from the edge of his flame-tinged dim vision, pulling up what looked to be a damaged version of her weapon. “Scarface – was that… was this girl related to you?”

“Leave.”

“I’m so sorry… I didn’t know, really…”

“Go, Karilyn,” he managed, each word making it harder to tame the rising tides of black around him. “Run.”

A bullet exploded on the man’s shoulder, then fell to the floor in front of him, harmless. The Knight and Karilyn both looked over to the Eternal Corps, undoubtedly aiming their weapons to the Knight.

“Run, all of you!” Vik bellowed, the flames making his voice louder and stronger than ever – and tinged, he did not fail to notice, with a strange viciousness that he did not recognize. “He’s mine! This city falls, but you – live! Live!” He could not help but end his speaking with a great roaring, ending in an uncontrollable scream and a paroxysm in his bones. It felt so good to hate.

“Scarface, I…” Karilyn hesitated and looked between him and the Knight. She seemed to understand, and for that, Vik was grateful – distantly, numbly, vaguely. Every emotion was distilled beneath the bubbling wrath. “I need to see you again. Okay? I will come back for you. I don’t know where we’re going to go, or what’s going to happen, but… Please, Scarface.”

“I like it better,” Vik whispered, forcing himself to step ahead of Rosaria’s body, “when you call me by my name.”

He couldn’t see her anymore, but he knew Karilyn Red smiled at that. He hoped he did, somewhere in his heart. “Okay then, Scarface. I’ll call you that… when I see you again.” She sighed. “Come on! Blondie, we’re leaving! Let’s go!”

“This is all very touching,” the Black Knight said, still smiling that grin that made Vik want to rip his hair out. “But you can’t think I’m going to let you have this.” He raised his hand, and his eyes began to glow again…

…and the next thing Vik knew, he was on Knight’s chest, beating down with flaming hands and screaming once again. The metal was hard beneath him and he did not care. He did not care if the others could see his savagery, or if Karilyn had gotten away in time so that she did not get burned by the fires he left behind. He tried not to think if he had dragged himself far enough from Rosaria to preserve her body. All that mattered to him was the enemy in front of him, the true enemy, the last enemy that mattered. So Vik attacked and attacked, his eyes clenched shut but his hands beat down savagely, burning and bashing all at once. He smelt the annihilation in the smoke of his flesh-flames, but did not feel the peeling of his skin.

The tide has risen and it fell, and the sands of exhaustion dragged on him with it in a complementary wave. Vik took a single heartbeat to catch his breath and re-gather his fire, but that heartbeat was enough for the man beneath him to buck and kick Vik off his body.

“How?” Vik panted on his back, trying to rise as quick as his weak body would let him. “How are you… still…?”

“Alive?” The Black Knight’s voice was clear and strong in the cacophony of the battlefield, and did not quiver with pain at all. Vik’s heart lurched when he looked up to see the Knight, rising faster than him – and completely unharmed. He laughed and raised his hands out to his sides. “You are a great man, and an even greater fool. Haven’t I told you before that you cannot hurt me?”

“Damn you,” Vik breathed, an immense emptiness rising in him along with a hint of bile. The flames had subsided; a gentle black, warm glow rested over his body like gooseflesh solidified, but the heat no longer rose, and his breath came to him with difficulty. He was still tired, so tired, and though he had managed to control his rage, it still did not come easy. He looked up to the Knight beneath his harsh eyebrows and he still shook with rage. Tears hotter than fire beaded at the corners of his golden eyes. “Who are you? Why do you do this?”

“I am justice. And justice is power. I was born for this power.” The Knight walked over to Vik, still struggling to rise, with one black gloved hand closing and opening a tight fist. “You and I were born for this. You, with those stolen eyes and their fire. And me… with my own power. My own justice. The only difference between us is that I will win.”

“Shut up. Shut up.” Almost to his feet, Vik’s body shuddered in pain and he fell to his knees again, landing hard on his hands and splitting open his left palm on the damaged cobblestone. Long bangs of unruly hair from his widow’s peak covered his eyes, but not his vision. The hatred and the fire had not left his body, and he was glad for it.

He looked up immediately, eyes focusing on the enemy, the devil. The black that emerged and billowed around the tall, stark figure was more satisfying than Vik expected. The triumph was a soaring feeling, one that brought Vik to his feet, stepping forward with his chest puffed out and his arms pulled back into tight fists. ‘Burn, burn, please, burn!’

The Knight did not burn.

The flames went away from the pain-convulsing and forced blinking of Vik’s eyes, not the annihilation of the target. He stumbled backwards from his icon of power, fingers gripping and flexing near his face in response to the pain. Now that he was not defending himself, the Knight audibly sprinted forward, much quicker than before. Before Vik could react, a hand clasped around his face, keeping his eyes closed and stealing away his agonized moan. The grip was tight enough to lift Vik to his tiptoes, and made him feel as if his strength was leaving him.

“Your flames cannot burn me, child,” the Knight said, his voice an incredibly slow cadence of strength. “This armor is for show. The true armor is in my eyes. I told you that you cannot hurt me. But I can hurt you.”

The other fist slammed into Vik’s stomach like a missile, and he was thrown forward several feet. The rags on his back did nothing to prevent the debris-covered ground from tearing and scraping him apart. For the first time, on his back, Vik was able to see the damaged, wounded skyline of the city.

More airship reinforcements had arrived, and were circling the city. The shelling still continued to grow closer. Every building was either burnt or crippled. Just as Karilyn had said, at some point the Black Castle had shattered and fallen apart; in fact, Vik and the Knight were fighting in a clearing of its remains mixed with the debris of the white wall surrounding it, chunks of marble-like stone mixing with shattered seastone mixing with dead bodies. The symphony of the battlefield had slowed and faltered outside of the clearing but had not stopped.

“Yes,” the Knight continued in that casual baritone of his, insidious while exceedingly light-hearted. “Look up above, and weep. That is the army of the World Government above, the same army that your sister was forcibly drafted into – under my recommendation, of course. They are all under my control. All the world is under the control of the Golden Snake – of the true Tyrants. You imposters could never understand the extent of our power, until now… when our fangs are all displayed for you to look upon, just before they tear out your throat.”

“Why?” Vik choked, on his back still, the only thing unmoving in his vision being his chest. Were his eyes golden right now, he wondered; could he set the sky on fire, if he hated it enough? “Why have you been doing all of this… to me? What is it you people want? Why destroy so much?” Without notice he became racked with tears that burned all the way down the sides of his face and into his ears. “Why kill so much? Why did you have to kill Rosaria?”

“I could give you the answer that my Leader has beaten into me, and injected into my veins before I could first open my eyes. I could tell you the spiels that my comrades believe with all their hearts.” The Knight’s footsteps grew louder and louder, and his still unscratched armor hummed a dirge with every step. ‘I hope it’s for her.’ Then another hand on his neck, digging into his vision, just like before. Vik was brought to his feet roughly, and he stood face-to-face with the Black Knight, all bones and perfectly manicured blond hair and golden eyes just like his own. “But me? I have done this all on my own. I have followed my Lord’s plan only because it benefits me. I have gone above and beyond my requirements only because it benefits me. I will make my chosen future happen.”

“And this is your chosen future? Ruined cities? Bombs? Endless death?”

“No, not endless. Only your death. That is the only one that matters.” Something other than magical power shone in the golden eyes of the Knight once named Kaiser, and Vik recognized it as sharply as a mirror’s cloudy condensation being wiped away and polished. The Knight’s eyes shone with hatred just like his own.

“Why?” Vik pleaded, almost whining out of pure misery. “What have I done to you? Why do you hate me?”

“Because,” he hissed, “You were the Crystal’s Chosen.”

Then Vik was on his back again, and his side was pelted with hard, sharp kicks to the side. “I didn’t ask for this,” he coughed in between the kicks piercing him like lances. “I didn’t ask to be born like this.”

“Neither did I! I knew since birth that I wouldn’t be able to defeat you! That all of this was to temper you – for the Lord’s ultimate benefit! I have always been disposable! I have always been simply an expendable! But why, when I am stronger than you? Why, when the world is in my hands? Why were we not Chosen?!”

‘Wait,’ Vik said to himself – forcing himself to remember, to hold onto the thought, even as the pain swelled and washed over him and threatened to drown him in unconscious again. ‘Lose? To me? He said defeat… I would defeat…’

Another kick was strong enough to send himself rolling away and coughing up blood. His innards hurt from the beating, and the outside of his body ached with invisible pain. But he pushed himself up on his arms, shaking with the effort, and forced himself to continue to draw breath. This time he was able to stand and back away from the Black Knight, who still advanced with all the tenacity of a demon.

“You will bleed,” the Knight continued, “eternally bleed. That is your fate.”

A great roll of thunder cut across the sky, and the unusually dark night appeared to shatter and grow even darker. Vik had been so deeply in and out of consciousness since the battle began that he had no idea what time of day it was.

“You’re just a jealous piece of shit,” Vik panted. “I’ve been so confused, this whole time. I thought you and your group had some of grand plan, something I could never hope to understand. That’s why this has all been so senseless and so scary to me.” He laughed, though not a shred of happiness remained in his battered body. “But it didn’t make sense because you don’t make sense. You’re just mad at me for being chosen for the Crystal. I… I can’t believe it.”

“Don’t kid yourself, you ignorant son of a bitch. The snake is all powerful. We do have designs you cannot understand, plans that have been brewing for lifetimes. I should be in Kornelia right now, helping with the culmination of the Lord’s plans. But… I couldn’t give up this chance. Not in my lifetime.”

“…What plans?”

The Knight openly cackled at this, and pointed his thumb up to the sky. “Don’t you see the heavens? It’s the middle of the afternoon right now, and the sun is missing. You fool. It has already begun. And this is what happens with only six Crystals gathering… Imagine if I had listened to the Lord, and went there with yours, as was planned!”

Vik’s tired, shell-shocked, raging mind struggled to put logic behind everything that was going on around him. Was it really the middle of the day? The sky looked as pitch-black as it was when the battle began, if not even darker. He imagined only a few hours had passed, but apparently he was gravely wrong. And what was this about the Lord’s plans? Six Crystals? That meant that the Serpent Knights had taken the Crystals from Silverius, the Chosen Knight, and Queen Vainia… or that all of the Crystal holders were in the same location, and that the other Chosen Heroes had failed somehow.

That meant he was the only one undefeated with a Crystal… the only one still able to resist.

“I know what you’re thinking, and I’m telling you it is too late,” the Knight said, as if he could really read Vik’s mind. “The only reason I wasn’t killed for disobeying my Leader at this part of the plan is because my actions mean nothing anymore. Whether you are alive or not… whether I am alive or not… either way, the Lord has enough power to go about his plan, and it has already begun. The rending and assault onto the world will begin very soon. Really, when I think about it like that… I should thank my Lord, for giving me this opportunity to settle things with you and not hold anything back. I’ve been waiting so long… and now you’re finally ready to be defeated, the right way.”

“That’s your justice?” His vision was still hazy, his head was pulsing with a migraine, and he could not stand in any one position without every muscle screaming in pain before seconds, but Vik still felt the tide of anger in him whenever he looked at the Knight’s unbelievably smug face. Those golden eyes had looked into Rosaria’s – and blinded her. For that, Vik wanted only to pluck them out with his bare hands. “This is the power you preach about? The truth? All you’ve done is fuck up my life! And this planet! Where is the justice in that?!”

The Knight narrowed his eyes and his smile melted off his face. “I’m tired of talking to a walking dead man. I’ve said all I have to say already.” He started to walk forward again and his eyes twinkled, likely in preparation for an attack. “All that’s left is to choke the life out of your imposter eyes, and to laugh as this world ends.”

“Wait,” Vik said, putting a hand out and stumbling backwards. “You said your power… it stops my flames.”

“Kaiser” frowned. “Yes. I did say that.”

“So… this battle with our eyes… it’s pointless.” He couldn’t stop breathing hard, and had to bend over and keep his hands on his knees to stabilize himself. Was this the pain Silverius felt when he used his wind powers? Did Vainia suffer like this? “I can’t hurt you, and you can’t attack with your ability. So why use them? Why not settle this… like men?”

“…Excuse me?”

“You say my eyes are fakes. So let’s fight on an equal level. Why don’t you prove to me that you’re better than me, eh?”

He could see the smoldering in the Knight’s eyes, as fiery as if Vik’s own black flames were melting the Knight’s eyes in their sockets. Vik couldn’t smile due to the throbbing ache in every part of his body, but he felt relief inside that his improvised plan had worked – the Knight took his bluff and was inflamed by his jealous anger. Indeed, a moment later, without responding at all, the Knight’s golden eyes suddenly faded – reverting to a neutral brown – and he raised his fists to cover his mouth.

When Vik blinked and forced away his Tyrant eyes with a colossal effort, the Knight rushed forward and swung a punch at Vik’s jaw.

The attack almost knocked him out and came very close to knocking Vik off his feet. As he struggled to hold onto his consciousness, he only barely felt himself stumble and raise his fists while a tooth in a small stream of blood flowed down his chin. The next hits were to his chest and arms, shaking him with even more pain and threatening to drive him to the ground. Vik only put the bare minimum of his energy into trying to dodge and parry, none into fighting back, and focused the rest of his energies into staying conscious and remembering the purpose of this bluff.

‘He did not move each time I tried to burn him,’ Vik repeated to himself each time he felt his brain rattle in his head and his vision grow a little darker. Before long he realized he was sobbing again, in between each punch that thundered into him. ‘The first and the second time, he stopped when I used it. Every time I have tried to wound him, he was not in motion. Norzaven, Zeta, my home… Is this it? Do I finally have a chance?’

He let himself be pummeled, and only protected his face. As long as his eyes did not swell shut, Vik’s desperate plan had a chance at success. The Knight moved as swiftly and as efficiently as Vik imagined he would; every motion was another solid attack, and he never stopped moving. Vik watched his attacker’s eyes and, at some point, let his arms fall around him limply. He took the attacks and waited for that moment, that very specific moment that he had only recently defeated –

…and it came, finally, just when Vik was about to collapse. The Black Knight’s eyes glazed over, and he lost himself to pure, aggressive hatred. At that point, he did not see Vik, no longer observed or even saw him; there was only the feeling of hatred, and the sensation of pushing his body further and further until the source of his hate was extinguished.

With some of the last energy in his body, and with only a fraction of the endless hate, Vik summoned both of his Tyrant eyes and let burst the black flames on the obsidian Knight.

Never had a sound as satisfactory as the Black Knight’s screams ever permeated Vik’s ears. The Knight immediately recoiled back from his attacks, raising his hands into the air and faltering as the pitch black flames almost instantly fanned out to every part of his body. The scream from the Knight was the scream that Vik had always heard from someone he set the fires on – high-pitched, agonal, deep from the chest, and wildly tinged with the deepest, most animalistic fear for life than a human being could summon. As Vik fell to the ground, one hundred percent of his motor focus within his eyesight so that he could watch the Knight burn to ashes, he laughed with an involuntary and sick cackle of righteous glee.

Then his eyes were forced closed by the sudden impact of a massive spear of light smashing into the earth around him.

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