139. The End of a Musician

Frost’s name was called more times than she could count.

She threw her body in ever conceivable direction, all the while the Hired Arm sent a violent volley of bullets into the direction of the encroaching Aspirations.

Behind the small wall of hearts in the faraway distance were the musicians. They ran in tow with countless innocent lives, creating living paintings such as horses and wolves that galloped across the landscape.

She knelt by Res and Jury’s side, checking for every vital sign. They were highly unstable. Their chests visually contorted and distended, their hearts thrashing within like a caged animal.

“Why… Why won’t they wake up!? What’s happening to them!? Nav!?” Frost cried.

“Their desires are likely far more powerful than anyone else’s. You’ve noticed it already. That they were strongly affected by the effects of the Heart of Ours. They are trying to combat it from aspirating them, much like how Cer resisted the False Diamond’s valuing.”

“There’s nothing we can do!? Tch… Dammit… DAMMIT!” Frost shouted at the top of her lungs, frightening countless as L.S, Broker, Perla, Ayel and the Hired Arm began swiftly herding them back into the direction of the collapsed cavern.

“Bring whatever food you can! Our last stand will be our walls! The Big Red Heart won’t be able to fit through!” L.S commanded.

“FROST! We cannot afford to bring those ones with us! SCARLET HEALER! HEALER! FOLLOW!” Broker was not willing to take any chances and demanded that Res, Jury, and the children be left behind.

Frost could not argue with him. She knew exactly how risky it would be to send them back given their abnormal circumstances. Out of everyone suffering from the Heart Wrench stacks they were the only ones who managed to hold on.

“YOU HAVE WHAT AUTHORITY TO MAKE THAT DECISION!?” Cer’s teeth crackled with electricity so powerfully that the loose rock began to levitate as she marked Broker for immediate death.

“WE ARE NOT GOING TO LEAVE RES BEHIND!” Ber joined her, her electrical claws digging straight into the earth as they prepared to strike Broker for even thinking such a thing.

But Frost, who had already had enough of all of this, instantly wrapped the duo and brought them close to her face.

“Cer… Ber… I’m at my wits end.” Frost just barely managed to contain her animosity. “Can’t you see that Res isn’t the only one suffering! You’re not the only one who has to make difficult decisions! Look around you!” She began to strangle them, depleting a quarter of their HP.

But the duo did not resist. They could only stare at Frost, then at Jury. Their ears folded down as tears suddenly welled in their eyes. It took tremendous willpower to keep themselves from lashing back. They only clawed and gnawed on her wrapped Touch of Golds, trying to cope with Res’ predicament.

Because there was a chance that they’d never see Res again.

But they also understood that there was a chance that Frost wouldn’t see Jury again either. Their emotions were mutual, but the difference was how they dealt with it.

Frost’s heart ached. Deep down, she also wanted to yell and scream. She wanted to get Jury out of here, knowing that the effects only got stronger as the Big Red Heart drew nearer.

“Uncurable. They have something that’s over tier 4. Either tier 5 or untired.” Ponea warned, followed by a confirmation from Nav.

“The Aspirating Condition. There is a high chance that they’d pass on the illness. Ignis is repeatedly gaining Heart Wrench stacks just from proximity alone… Frost. Keep them close. Do not lose them.”

… I won’t. I’ll wait however long it takes for them to wake up.

She mentally vowed and placed the duo right beside Res, allowing them to spend their last moment with her until the Triple Paw Complex finally vacated.

The massive distance between here and the Big Red Heart made it difficult even for the Moons to keep a steady hold of their hearts. The number of Heart Wrench stacks only continued to accumulate, and Ponea was required to be elsewhere and everywhere at once.

She could not stay here and babysit the wants of two selfish Moons.

The people already afflicted by Aspiring required a healer to keep them from prematurely dying, as their HP collapsed at roughly 5% per few seconds. This was why frost couldn’t leave them. Because if she did, then who else would be able to look after them?

And it was not like Ponea and Sana possessed unlimited mana either.

“Please! Hurry! We have to go! Now!” A trembling Sana urged them to flee.

By now it was only Sana, the Hired Arm, Ignis and Ponea who waited for Stella, Cer and Ber to leave. Everyone else had already vacated, and the immediate Aspirators were already dealt with thanks to the Hired Arm.

It became silent again.

Cer and Ber still could not come to terms with abandoning Res. Eventually, they embraced their sleeping sister one last time, rubbing their cheeks together like wolf cubs before they stormed right to Frost’s face with eyes brimming with electrical fury.

… No. It wasn’t fury. It was sincerity, brimming from the bottom of their hearts.

“Save Res. Please save Res…” Cer collapsed into Frost’s chest.

Something damp permeated through her coat.

“I promise we’ll never bother you again. So please save our sister.” Ber asked in a meek, feminine voice unlike her usual tomboyish one.

A pair of hands then found themselves on their head, stroking their hair and ears.

“Yeah. You can count on me. Res is a friend. There’s no way in hell I’m going to let her die. The same goes for you two. Don’t do anything stupid. Ignis, you’re in charge of them.” Frost spoke in a higher tone than normal, wearing a small, confident smile to help reassure them.

“Then what about you, Frost.” Cer asked.

“Yeah. What about you?” Ber was also worried.

“… Angel…” Stella uttered.

“I’ll take care of them all. Don’t worry about me. And don’t worry about your friends, Stella. I’ll do everything in my power to keep them alive… So hurry up and go. Ponea. You’re needed there.” Frost bid them farewell.

“So you’ll power through the disease. Good luck. Take me, twin Amalgam! Plenty more waiting to be healed!” Ponea clasped onto the waist of the Hired Arm, as Ignis gently pried Stella away.

“I’ll figure something out.” Frost assured them with all the confidence she could muster.

“… Save everyone.” Stella uttered before finally surrendering to Ignis. “… Please end this… I don’t want to hear them like that.”

“Stars! Stars! Stars!”

“Night skies. I want to be a star. Let’s become stars!”

“The star is gone! We have to replace it, or no one will know the way!”

They ravenously gushed, squirming like worms as they reached for the starless cavern skies. It was hard to not get emotional seeing them suffer, but in the end, there was nothing Frost could do but hope that they’d also turn out Determined.

Their farewells were abridged. Frost instantly howled in agony the moment Ponea left her immediate vicinity. She clamped her teeth shut and relied heavily on Painkiller to alleviate the heart wrenching pain of Heart Wrench.

“At 100 stacks you will be afflicted with Aspiring. You are at 10 now.”

… If there’s anyone that’s going to survive, then it’d be me.

“I worry for you this time. You might not come out unscathed.”

I don’t doubt it either. I know how stupid it is. I know how dumb it must look to you. Aha… Agh… It probably looks like bravery to them. Me? Stubbornness, I think. Because deep down my body’s telling me to run.

“But you won’t run.”

“I can’t afford to.” Frost growled. “Nothing is going to change if I do. I have people I want to protect. Desires I want to fulfill. Sadness I want to stop seeing at every step of the way.” Her Touch of Golds individually wrapped Jury and Res as she gently kept the children tucked into a nested ball.

Their utters became muffled. As her tentacles broke free from the crevasses and scars that were made by her initial crash, she suddenly realized that she wasn’t alone. Hidden underneath a mound of tentacles was the bleeding body of a certain musician.

Leitmotif | HP: 500

“… Herring… Why…” He gurgled breathlessly, finally able to breathe as his HP hung on by a thread.

Frost’s feet pulverized the loose brick as she approached him, her figure entering his vision. He froze in that instant and made all kinds of incoherent noises as she nonchalantly knelt by his legs.

“Amalgam… Amalgam…? Aha… Hahaha… Torture me… In the end… It will not matter. My death will be a steppingstone for my next life.” He monologued, his voice falling onto deaf ears as Frost temporarily healed him and, without any warning, severed his legs clean off.

“20 stacks.”

Frost, true to her word, was going to devour this insect from the foot up. His screams filled the air, but there was an aura of mockery in it. Like this death meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.

She thought otherwise, however. A prideful man who thought nothing but himself would despair if death came rattling on his door. Perhaps like the Bloody Herring, he had some sort of invincibility.

That’s why Frost was going to put her maw to the ultimate test.

Disgust was but a thing of the past. She happily swallowed every torturous bite she took out of him, savoring his screeches.

“AAAAAAAAAA. Death – Will not take me, Amalgam! No matter how powerful you think you are, you cannot touch the soul like Carpalis!” She managed to piece his broken words together.

She wanted to break his spirit. The world collapsed as they knew it, and as the muffled aspirations of the children played behind her, she vowed to drive despair into Leitmotif’s heart.

Or what remained of it.

“40 stacks.”

“Devourer… Devour me all you want. I… I will return. I will be recreated by our friends! And they will know everything about you!”

She eventually reached his chest and began to sink her touch of golds into his body, filling him like an intubated patient. They ate him from the inside out as she maintained her healing to great effect, manipulating his life like he was no more than a toy.

“Then when we return… when we… What…? My… my soul…?”

Something suddenly clicked inside of him.

“Wait… Wait – WAIT – WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME!?”

Frost didn’t know what he was talking about. All she yearned for was to leave no traces of him behind. When she reached his upper chest, his voice became so frantic that she had to wonder just what caused his demeanor to break.

It certainly wasn’t the pain.

Perhaps there was more than just flesh that her maw could devour.

Because if his words were to be believed, then even souls were at the mercy of her maw.

“No one said anything about this! AMGALAM! SHOW ME MERCY! HOW COULD HAVE THE GEARS OVERSEEN THIS!? Did the Gears lie to me!? HERRING DID YOU LIE TO ME!? Carpalis was supposed to be the only true threat!”

“… Mercy? Show you mercy? What about the people you turned into instruments? What about the people you planned to kill on the surface?” His audacity to beg for mercy caused Frost to grate her teeth. “What about me? When I came to this world knowing nothing… When I was stabbed, thrown into that forest, and left to be judged by that bird? Did anyone give me mercy? You said it yourself. You and I aren’t any different.”

Her healing magic was frighteningly potent. There was no blood that could have circulated within his brain, and yet he was still fully conscious. Questions like how he was able to speak were arbitrary.

He was going to die. The answers were bound to be digested alongside him.

“So just like me.” She prepared to finish him off in one fell swoop, now that only his carapace head and fragments of his spine remained. “You won’t get any mercy.”

“I CAN’T DIE LIKE THIS! AMALGAM! HAVE MERCY! MY SOUL IS GOING TO DISAPPEAR! Did you steal – Did you take that soul-devouring ability from Carpalis!? There are two people who can destroy souls!? H-Heart… AMAGLAMANG! AMALAGAMAMAAAAA! Where is your heart –!?”

His head was instantly pulverized by her bare fist. A gaping hole was all that was left as her tentacles hungrily devoured the rest of his body, which was no different to a crushed melon.

Frost had reflexively ended him out of uncontrollable spite. TO still declare innocence, and to somehow pin the blame back onto her despite dancing on the palm of death left a sour taste in her mouth.

But she was happy.

Happy that Leitmotif could no longer create music.

And happy that his tone finally matched the screams of his victims.

Silence returned again. It was oddly cathartic now, despite the horrors that loomed across the cavern.

“80 stacks.”

Frost stood up, her body rocking back and forth as she struggled to maintain her balance.

“… butterflies are entering me. Hey Nav…”

“Yes?”

“Did the Archivist have a weird dream?” Frost asked as she prepared for the worst, already involuntarily lifting her hands up towards her chest.

“She did. Both your names were blanked for her. But she remembers that night you spent stargazing. You two knew each other more than I imagined.” Nav was genuinely surprised by the recollection.

The conflict of her memories of Earth and that bizarre world that made it impossible to understand the timeline of that memory. But they knew for certain that it was somewhere in the past.

“Yeah… It turns out we both came from the same world. A doomed world, apparently… I wonder what I was. Or who I was, aside from a nurse. From Earth, of course… I was Dressed in military garbs like my Hired Arm. Maybe I was a mercenary… Aha… Haha… Ahhh… Nav.” Frost’s tone softened.

She clasped at her chest, remembering the feeling of her masculine hands as she gazed up into the crimson skies.

“90 stacks. Yes?”

“I’m suddenly in the mood to see the stars. I don’t know why… But looking up at that red ceiling makes me feel sad.” Frost uttered her last words before the stacks accumulated to 100.

Her body instantly lurched forward as she felt multiple ribs snap. A pained scream bellowed from her as her heart thrashed itself. There was nothing she desired more than to protect these people, and this became the source of her aspiration.

She felt like she was drowning, and the muffled voices of the children unanimously cried:

< “We want to fill the skies! The empty skies shouldn’t be enjoyed alone.” >

< “That way, you can stargaze with us in mind.” >

< “And we’ll forever stay by your side, our unrisen star.” >

//////// < WARNING > ////////

< ASTER AND THE ASPIRING STARS’ CORRUPTION EVENT HAS BEGUN >

< ETERNAL NIGHT >

< THE ARBITER’S TRUMPET RESONATES>

Asterism
Stargazing Children

< We hope that our existence takes the burden off your mind >

AFFINITY : Hope
LEVEL : 100     ORIGIN : Trauma     HP : 750,000     ATT : 0     MAG ATT : 10,000
ATT DEF : 6,000     MAG DEF : 6,000     MP : 0     RESIST : 200     AGI : 0

Then, a big red heart burst forth from Frost’s chest, deleting three quarters of her HP.

< The Will of the Amalgam Has Reached the Third State >