Chapter 18 - Roadwork Ahead

The moment I entered the barrier, it disappeared. Ame had a look of contempt on his face before he shot forward into the circle.

“Look at me.”

Ame ignored the child.

He sat there, avoiding eye contact with both of us, tapping his foot.

I waited for him to say something.

“Are you gonna connect our strings, Nell? We don’t have all day.”

I see. He wanted me to do it. I had a slight feeling why he didn’t want to do it himself, but it was still difficult to understand.

But, looking at himself would be unavoidable if they were connected. It pained me to pain him, but it had to be done.

I carefully gripped the string and ripped it out of his chest. Child Ame was still sobbing. Despite how he looked, it was still Ame. Ame hated this Ame, but I couldn’t hate him. If that had hurt Ame, then that would be unfortunate, but worth it. We needed this. I needed this. I had to console him.

“It’s okay. I’ll connect you two. You’ll have to bear with it for a while.”

I lifted his chin up and connected the string to his heart. Both of the Ame’s were in pain, but it needed to happen.

Before the reality disappeared, the child smiled at me softly. I nodded back to try and tell him that it’ll be okay.

The broken landscape faded and we were back in the hotel.

“Did he do it?” Sy asked.

“Yes. He did it.”

It was weird for me to be the one speaking for Ame instead of the other way around, but I felt confident. Actually, it wasn’t that I felt confident. It’s that I couldn’t feel unconfident.

Ame plopped down onto the couch and immediately closed his eyes.

I tilted my head towards him

“Are you gonna sleep?”

“Nell, you’ve been asleep for like over half of your life. Humans need sleep y’know.”

He wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t feel like it. Time doesn’t seem to be passing when I sleep, but I could feel that it passed when I woke up.

“Knock Knock.”

The God of Time spoke to me as I was talking to Ame.

“Are you going next? Ame certainly didn’t think so. I’m sure that… guy… wouldn’t sleep if he knew you were going to.”

I didn’t connect myself to my internal world self, because I didn’t think I had one. Every time I entered it, I never saw one. Only the God of Time was there.

“Just come in. I can’t say anything else.”

I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to but I had to. We needed as much strength as possible to save Dominic. If I needed to throw away what I wanted, then I was glad it was for him.

Sy and Kaya ran upstairs as I waved to them, implying that I was going to sleep.

…

The universe around me imploded on itself only for a darkness full of illuminated stars to take their place, with a throne sitting in front of me. But, the throne wasn’t empty. There was more sitting in that throne than I had ever witnessed in my life. A singular figure, encased with every constant of the universe itself glared at me with no eyes.

It was a figure that I had rarely seen.

The first time was when I died. The second was when I was in Kaya’s internal world. But at this moment, it seemed completely different. I couldn’t tell what it was, besides the title of “the Original Sin” mentioned by L’eau. To its left was L’eau, who was in a human form I had never seen before. It looked incredibly similar to the God of Time’s human form, with slight differences. Her tenebrous hair and dress almost blended in with the black background, only being distinct because of the small light of the stars observing us.

But, the stars weren’t observing us like usual. They always would, but the only gaze I felt came from one direction. The throne.

My body unconsciously walked over to the throne as I knelt to the being sitting on it. It gracefully grabbed the string from its own heart.

“You wish for the essence of my eternity, do you not? Very well. You will gain but a fraction of the essence on my string. Do not fret. The tolerance will grow along with your person. A gift from me to you, Prince of Eternity.”

I unwillingly stood up as it held the string up to my heart. L’eau and the God of Time were laughing and chatting in the corner as if they were friends.

The being spoke again.

“Continue doing as you do. Building you up until the game is the only correct choice here. So, I will do as I believe.”

He shoved the string into my chest. An immense pain radiated throughout my entire being. I collapsed onto the floor, but everybody was already gone. They had gone to sleep. I was alone and Ame’s disease was getting worse by the second. But, we gained the strength to have a chance at protecting Dominic. I hated being anxious. It was one of the worst feelings one could feel. What if we failed? What was the chance that we would succeed?

“About 30%. You’re strong enough to equal them, but they have a lot more people. Good luck, Nell.”

I wasn’t asking her. That just made it worse. There was less than a one in three chance to succeed. We needed a better plan. Dominic wouldn’t be able to fight, so it was only thirty. But, Dominic would boost our chances significantly. He’s better at strategizing than all of us. So, what if-

Knock Knock

BOOM!

There was a knock on the hotel room door and the sound of an object shooting through wind at insane speeds.

Was somebody shooting this late at night? I didn’t realize those terrifying weapons were so common in Jeti.

I opened the door to see what was happening, but there was nobody there. Instead a letter laid there. I picked it up and read it.

“Nice hotel room. Marē contacted us and big things are happening!!! Execution date is now 06:00 on October 8th. Don’t let that blue haired fuck miss it.

-Love, the one and only Verwa. P.S: Dominic is a chill guy. Sad that he has to die, Haha. :p”

What? What? What? What? Today? In three hours? I had no time to think. I shot towards Ame and woke him up. Before he could even open his eyes, I threw the letter at him and rushed upstairs to Kaya and Sy.

“KAYA! WAKE UP!”

She flipped over onto her side as Ame rushed up the stairs with blood dripping from his mouth.

“Kaya. Sy. We’re leaving right now. Dominic’s execution was rescheduled to today. We have three hours. The capital is three hours away.”

Kaya’s consciousness quickly rushed back to her, as she grabbed Sy’s unconscious body and flew out the door, breaking it as she left. We both rushed to follow her. I grabbed a slab of raw meat from the fridge as we sprinted as fast as possible to an abandoned farm a couple minutes away. Sy woke up soon, incredibly disoriented. Kaya dropped him and he sprinted along with us, without knowing what was going on.

After we turned the corner, we saw Little Man and the worm there. Ame had left them a bowl of rice and some meat, so I was glad I brought some more food. I threw the slab of meat into Little Man’s mouth and hopped on her back. Ame shoved the letter at Sy as we shot towards the execution site.

Nobody said a word the entire trip. Everybody was too absorbed in their own thoughts. Kaya’s hand was shaking as Sy looked emptily at the ground. I tried looking around to observe the scenery, but I was too focused on myself. I didn’t know what to think.

Suddenly, we jolted back as Little Man stopped sprinting. Ame hopped off of her back and spoke.

“We’re here.”

…

I looked over the building in front of us as hundreds of people gathered in an outdoor theatre. The stage had four commanders in uniform and many lower ranked members. But, in the center, was the most important part.

Dominic sat on his knees, tied up in the middle of the stage, with guns and swords pointed at his neck. Everybody watched him, and yet his look was proud. A voice echoed throughout the town.

“Hello, Hello people of Jeti. Welcome to the Execution Theatre. This is a Maylem warrior who had joined the terrorist group by the name of Eternal Flame. That's right. He has slaughtered countless of our men, and is set to be executed in… thirty seconds. It seems Ame didn’t show up after all.”

Kaya tried to rush forward, but was stopped by Ame.

“Irrationality will only hurt us. Follow my lead.”

The theatre had hundreds of people watching. Dominic’s knees scratched against the broken old wood floor. It stretched rather far.

Ame scoffed under his breath.

“A fucking theatre. The audacity.”

Kaya looked down, but then nodded.

Ame tapped Sy on the shoulder and spoke to us as Verwa began to count down.

“5…”

The sword was against Dominic’s neck. .

“4…”

Sy nodded.

“3…”

Sy shot an undetectable high-speed vacuum of wind towards the floor.

“2…”

A gun was loaded. The 83rd commander pointed his gun at Dominic’s head as he closed his eyes.

“1.”

BANG!

A body hit the floor.

Ame stood in front of the dead body of commander #83 with a pistol made of solid water. Kaya, Sy, and I all stood next to him. He pulled out his sword made of water and pointed it at Verwa.

“That ‘blue haired fuck’ did show up, Verwa. That letter wasn’t very nice, y’know.”

Verwa smiled, but clutched his fist at the same time.

“Glad you showed up. 50. 38. 25. Kill them. Ame is as strong as 38, but judging by the blood on his mouth, a little extra force would be nice. It’s not as fun if he's not at least less than half of your strength, isn’t it?”

The 25th commander shot towards him. His current strength would be able to take him out, even if he did struggle. I had no need to worry. Verwa was the issue. As I turned my attention to him I heard Ame cough up blood. The 25th commander’s cape flew behind him as he shot towards Ame with a wind infused longsword in his hand. If that hit Ame, he would die. I forgot how serious the condition was. I was stupid. I was careless.

My body reacted before I could think. I bolted towards the commander, blocking his sword with my arm infused with RME. It still stung, but the only damage was a bit of a scratch, unlike what happened with Verwa.

“Ame. You take 50. I’ll handle 25.” Ame nodded and gracefully dashed to the 50th commander, water droplets under his feet with every step.

“Don’t look away during a fight.”

The commander tried stabbing my stomach, but I caught it with my hand. I had no time to infuse it with RME, so it hurt a lot. But the pain was nothing compared to what I would feel if I failed.

I jabbed him in the stomach, mixing water magic with RME to try and blow a hole in his body. It failed, but he flew back. Mixing water and RME was the best way to conserve my energy. But, if I wanted to beat him, conserving my energy was the least of my worries.

He shot back towards me. He was going towards my head with his sword.

I ducked, but he boosted himself up with wind magic mid air. He shot himself down behind me, and stabbed me in the back of my shoulder.

It hurt. It hurt more than I could explain. But, I felt more active than before.

I turned around and blasted him with water, but he dodged. He stepped back, and landed directly into a box. And inside that box, was but a single marble-sized droplet of RME.

I pointed my finger down as the box closed with him encased inside.

______________________________________________________________________________

Across the battlefield, Kaya and Sy were untying Dominic. After he was freed, he got up and embraced both of them immediately.

“I’m glad you’re safe. I’m so glad you’re safe. If either of you had died, I would go find you in hell and scold you. But I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”

Footsteps slowly seemed to be getting closer and closer.

“Touching reunion, is it not? I love it. I love you. I love it all. Isn’t this so great? Familial love. Haah. Truly a shame I am forced to kill you. But I love that as well. Rather contradictory is it not? I…”

Dominic held his sword at the 38th commander.

“One more step and I’ll kill you. I don’t care for your rank.”

The commander stepped forward. Dominic tried to shoot forward at him, but was stopped by Sy.

“Let us handle this. You need to rest.”

“There’s no rest for the wicked. I will join you.”

Kaya, Sy and Dominic all stood up against the singular commander.

Sy shot Kaya forward through the air. She smiled and gripped her dagger before darting past him and slashing him in the stomach. Dominic ran up behind him and Sy ran to his front. He held his bleeding stomach, and blocked Dominic’s attack with his hand. But, Sy punched him in the stomach. His hand fell down as Dominic readied his sword.

In one fell swoop, Dominic cut off his head. Sy and Kaya were clapping, only slightly sarcastically. Dominic blushed and wiped the blood off his sword.

“When did you kids get so strong? You’re even stronger than me. I was honestly supri-”

A flying slash of air cut through space in an instant, splitting Kaya’s chest open. Blood shot out as her breathing halted.

Dominic and Sy could only watch. They didn’t know where it came from. And most of all, they were frozen. Frozen in fear. Fear that Kaya may be dead and fear that they may be next.

“50 points! I’m fuckin’ amazing at this. Thank God that I’m here, so a singular dead commander is no issue. Let the execution… commence!” Verwa yelled.

______________________________________________________________________________

As I was fighting #25, I heard a slash coming from my right. I turned my head.

Kaya was lying there. Chest opened. Not breathing.

It was even worse than what happened to Ame.

I couldn’t handle this.

My brain was shaking. My eyes were shaking. My hands were shaking. My identity was shaking.

I dispersed the box and shot half of my available RME directly at the commander's head as a blast. It came off before he could even react. He was dead. And I didn’t care.

I rushed over to Kaya’s side, unable to think of anything else.

Reconstruction. Reconstruction. Reconstruction.

I put my hands on her chest.

“Reconstruction.”

I began to heal her wounds. Magic turned into replacement cells. And soon, I was out. If I wanted to heal her any more, I would need to pour into the energy allowing me to live. So, I did.

I poured in half of that too. Her breathing began to stabilize, but I collapsed onto the floor. I crawled towards her and put my head on her chest.

Her heart was beating.

She was alive.

At this moment, my eyes were drawn to Dominic as I crawled on the floor like a worm.

I saw inside his internal world, without even touching it. The past and present of it played in my head as if they existed at the same time.

…

At first, it was a barren landscape. There was nothing there. A desert. Not an element in sight. Soon, there was a road. Normally, the person’s internal world self would be there. But there was no Dominic. There was a girl. She looked rather similar to Kaya, but slightly younger and her hair was more bright than regular crimson. After she came, the surroundings became more lively. Plants I had never seen before began to grow like a jungle. But, the plants soon died. The girl disappeared. In her place stood a broken road. It then began to rain. This matched up with the time Ame had told me Dominic joined the group. The road fixed itself. Soon enough, Kaya showed up on it. Sy did too. Plants began to grow back. The time shifted again.

It was now the present day. The cliff at the end of his road began to rumble. Soon enough, he came out of it.

The internal world Dominic jumped out of the canyon at the end of the road.

And he stepped forward.