<<Revive Failed>>
The last miscalculation.
Just one error after another.
Should have stayed and fought. Should have convinced him otherwise. Should have done so many other things. But he had banked on it instead, the power of his magic, the ability to pull others back from the dead, the ability to cheat death through forbidden spells. Her value as an ‘individual’ had dropped after she revealed that the gift she bore was truly a gift, not a skill that could be learned, could be mastered, but no one was a mere individual.
Her mother, her twin sister, her bodyguard, his girlfriend, the entire town. All that benefited so much from the divine power that she granted, but all that loved her as well, for being the child that she was. If a death and a revival removed that blessing, it was fine. If a death and a revival reduced her to naught but an ordinary child, it was fine. If a death and a revival wiped out all her memories, it was fine.
But if a death and a revival did nothing, what did that mean?
Naught but sin, naught but lost lives, naught but severed connections. Ah, it turned out that he wasn’t fit for these types of jobs after all. Ah, it turned out that all the madness that he enjoyed, that he shrouded himself in meant nothing once only spent coals were left. Ah, ah, ah…
Who was the true enemy?
Mm, he really had no excuse to offer this time, hm?
The shadow of his weak self.
A long way from Honeyhome. A long way from the Duchy’s rot. A long way from Falderen’s prisons. A long way from the anthem of the God Fist. A long, long way.
He was happy that Magi wasn’t there. Happy that Seigi wasn’t there. Happy, even, that Ursa wasn’t there to bear witness to any of this. Oh so fucking happy. He was even happy that Aalam was there! Happy enough to drown in vanilla sweet hatred, as he smiled that beautiful, wretched smile. Flagbearer and Slaughterer, Blessed and Cursed.
Unable to save anyone when it really mattered, he’ll continue to bear their weight of their lives and offer condolences and vengeance to the living. The Garden of Roses and now the Aristocracy. Ah, so many things to destroy, when his primary vocation had been as a healer, hm? When all he had envisioned before was to be someone who could raise heroes, could witness wonderful things that he couldn’t see in the real world. The radiance of a divine miracle, and the iniquity of a desecrating heresy.
Now, both had found root in himself, tendrils carving him apart.
He stopped smiling.
Turned to the heart in his hand, the useless catalyst for resurrection.
And tenderly, carefully, he laid that raw core into the ground, burying it.
No tears. No screams. No emotion.
Naught but another oath.
Neither hero, neither villain. Neither human, neither monster.
He continued to walk.
On that thin, thin line.
