Going Away

White gathered her backpack and her cane and rose from her bench. It was time to bring her trip to an end. With stalkers that turned into friends and a hopeless condition they had cured, the White Witch thought the trip this time was peaceful enough. She smiled as she watched the laughing Blue, the stuffed Paladin, the complaining Scholar, and the good-natured Fleur.

Right as she was getting up from the table, the Witch accidentally startled an old lady with a tray of food passing by. The elderly woman, covered in a dusty, tattered cloak, fell to the ground, her bread rolling away from her and her soup spilling in a big steaming splash.

She let out a despairing gasp and whimpered in her croaked voice. Her thin, bony hands trembled as she reached for the dirtied food. She started crying, her sorrowful tears splattering into her spilled soup.

The Witch, feeling terrible about the accident, knelt to help up the elder.

“I’m sorry,” the Witch said. “Please, let me help you.”

The old woman didn’t have a good balance, or perhaps she was too distraught by her spilled food and almost fell to the ground again. The Witch leaned forward quickly to catch the elderly, and a pain shot up her side.

The Witch grunted, holding the side of her torso. The cloaked woman suddenly ran away in a hurry without any elderly clumsiness.

The demon dashed immediately to the Witch’s side. She caught the Witch before her body hit the ground.

The Witch let go of her hand on her torso. Blood stained her hand. Her mana suddenly burst out from her body. Like a strong gust of wind, her escaping mana pushed away everything around her except for the demon. The tables, chairs, and people flew away. The Paladin, the Scholar, the Fleur, and Blue tumbled into a pile.

“Her mana channels are all destroyed!” the Succubus yelled. The demon poured mana into the White Witch to stabilize her condition. Despite this, it was clear that she wouldn’t have much time to live. A person cannot live without mana, just like they cannot live without blood.

“The amulet,” Blue shouted.

“No, it’s too late,” the Succubus replied with despair.

Almost on animal instinct, the Fleur threw her hand at the supposedly elderly woman, and a seed the size of a walnut flew and attached itself to the tattered cloaked figure. Vines spewed and wrapped themselves around the troublemaker, binding her whole body. When the cloaked person fell to the ground, the vines dug into the earth and rooted the person on the spot.

The Witch, her face pale and sad, looked up to the Succubus. Her body temperature decreased at an alarming rate.

“No, don’t look at me like that,” the Succubus said. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

The White Witch shook her head. “Like I said, you can’t promise something like that.” She offered the Succubus a weak smile.

Blue, angry, strode over to the cloaked figure and unveiled their hood. Stunned, she shouted, “We thought you were dead!”

The Witch looked over and saw a face she didn’t expect to see. She was the one who failed to gain the Seat of the Blue Rose, the one they thought had died in the raging water under the cliff.

She was the Candidate who had killed the Blue-To-Be before and robbed her of her seat.

The Candidate’s face, covered with scars big and small, was ugly with obsession and chaos. One of her eyes was missing, leaving behind only a hollow socket. Hair poked from her head in all directions as if she had never bothered to comb her hair.

The Paladin, who was having so much trouble standing upright, somehow found the ability to walk over to the White Witch with the help of the Fleur and the Scholar. He didn’t dare step too close, but he didn’t need to.

The Holy Power that radiated from his body, even from a fair distance, revealed the same curse that inflicted Blue. It wrapped around the White Witch’s body in a miasma that was even darker and more vicious than Blue’s. Every time she breathed, the dark curse came out with her breath in dark wisps, only to return into the black miasma around her body in a looping cycle. The miasma drowned her from the inside out.

“Oh, how long I’ve waited for this day, how much I’ve planned,” the Candidate said, laughing maniacally.

“What are you talking about? What did you plan?” asked the Paladin, unable to stand the injustice he just witnessed. He told himself he would catch the criminal and stop anyone from being cursed again. However, it happened right before his eyes, and he couldn’t stop it.

“To kill that stupid witch!” the Candidate glared at White. “Getting all of you, the Paladin, the Scholar, and Blue, all lined up with the proper timing when the White Rose starts on her trip. She’s too powerful. The only way for the curse to work was to weaken her with the red pool monster first. The only person I didn’t account for was the Fleur, but they didn’t make much difference to the plans,” the Candidate gloated at her success.

“The Paladin, to weaken her demonic powers. The Scholar, to make sure he read about the mana plants and to show up in the city on the way of her trip. Me, infecting Blue at the right time near the Gate. 

"The labyrinth being near the Gate was just pure coincidence. With the curse, no matter where you were, the only way to save Blue was to obtain the mana plants, and the only mana plant that the White Rose knew existed was inside the labyrinth. 

"Thankfully, even without my interference, you found the blood pool and fell into it, meeting the monster that sucked your mana dry!” The Candidate laughed at how smoothly her plan went.

“You wicked woman!” Blue yelled at the Candidate, unable to contain her anger anymore.

“I can’t believe I was in a trap and didn’t even know it. That man’s journal came too conveniently. The malfunctioning city barrier and how I was suddenly assigned to fix it was too much of a coincidence,” the Scholar said.

“That’s right, I did that,” the Candidate said. “I had to pull a lot of strings just for you.”

“I got a letter from my mother that she was ill,” the Paladin said. “She was fine when I went back home. That was you, wasn’t it?”

The Candidate gave the Paladin a toothy, triumphant smile.

The Succubus, who continued to pour mana into the Witch’s body to sustain her, glared at the Candidate, her demonic eyes flaming with anger. “How dare you, human, do something so despicable?” the Succubus said. The demon was so angry that her voice unconsciously carried mana, and that mana penetrated the Candidate’s body. The Candidate gasped in pain.

They always said to never anger the demons.

“Me, despicable?” the Candidate said between gasps. “She’s the despicable one. Even though I’m qualified to be the Witch of the Blue Rose and passed all the tests, including hers, she picked the other witch!”

“Still as self-centered as ever,” the Blue Witch said. “I’m turning her in to the Council.”

The Blue whispered a message to the Council into her palms. She thrust her hands upwards, and a bluejay disappeared into the sky.

The White Rose, looking paler than when she had been dragged up from the red pool, started to lose focus in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” the White Rose said to the frightened Succubus. “Fear doesn’t suit you.” She tried to laugh, but only pain struck her body.

The White Rose knew her life was at its limit. At least she got to say goodbye. At least she got to see Dephinicus one last time. She smiled at him, content, as her consciousness started to fade.

The Succubus, in his panic, had let go of his transformation and returned to his original form.

The Candidate twisted her head in the White Rose’s direction. “That’s what you get for playing favoritism! No one could have thought I survived that fall, huh? I was always the better one, but you all failed to see it.”

Blue threw a spell on the Candidate and muted her mouth. “You still don’t understand why you failed, and that is your fault. You don’t get it, do you? It’s not just about how strong a candidate is. You only pretended to have a good heart, but you’re rotten inside.”

The Candidate struggled in vain. She showed no signs of remorse or repentance.

The Blue Witch glared at her and turned, rushing to the White Rose.

However, the White Rose's eyes were closed when she arrived. Blue stopped in her tracks, still a few feet away from her friend. It was not that she was too shocked to approach. She stopped because the expression on the demon’s face was so fierce and frightening that her body instinctively stopped on its own. She felt like she would be shredded to pieces if she took another step.

“Is she…” Blue said carefully, softly.

The demon held the White Rose closer to his body. “She’s not dead!”