224. Ber, the Unloved Duckling

Nav’s message was the last thing she ever wanted to hear. In that moment Frost turned on all heels, dropped every last Impuritas, quenched all flames that were not a part of her body and shouted at the top of her lungs.

“BER! CALM DOWN!”

“WHAT’S UP WITH YOU ALL OF A SUDDEN!?” The hairs along Cer’s tail and ears rose like the quills of a porcupine as all eyes immediately fell onto Ber.

“WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR VOICE BOX JUST A MOMENT AGO!?” Res complained, spiting Frost for having remained silent up until now. “Ber – She’s still fighting, Frost! She isn’t injured!”

“LISTEN TO ME! STICK CLOSE TO BER! HER EMOTIONS ARE HEIGHTENING!” Frost warned, and the triplets immediately heeded her warning without another word of defiance, as if something had flicked inside of them.

“Tch – What’s happening to your emotions Ber!? BER! ARE YOU OK!?” Cer shouted, moving to her sister’s side, who dragged a pair of crying Fragments in her arms along the shattered cobblestone.

Their wails never ceased. The bear paws clawed with futile effect against the original Ber. No matter how many dared to pile onto her she’d always prevail, rendering them down to their pages. But the screams were far from the falsehoods of their paper flesh.

“PLEASE SOMEONE HEAR ME!” A Fragment cried and had its head torn off.

“WHY CAN’T I JUST DO WHAT I WANT!?” Another wept and was reduced to ribbons.

“IT WASN’T MY FAULT THAT I JUST WANTED THEM TO LOOK AT ME!” Several cried at once, and she annihilated a group with multiple swipes as she burst straight into the Heart, tacking on whatever she saw like a berserked animal.

“SHUT UUUUUUUUUUUUP!” Ber hoarsely screamed at the top of her lungs as her sisters followed suit.

“BER! Tch – BEEEEER! SNAP OUT OF IT!” Cer shouted, failing to keep up with her as the Memory Bistro’s voice began to speak with omnipresence.

“There is finally enough fingers inside of this City’s greatest Heart. History supplemented by the raw, untapped emotions associated with the severed hands. A trauma resurfacing. Do you know the maxim of the Blood Festival, Oh Amalgam? Oh soon to be fallen Moons?” It hymned with the voices of countless.

The faces engraved into the fleshy walls of the egg-shaped Heart moved, reciting these words silently, as if the Memory Bistro had stolen their voices. Frost aided in the destruction of the Heart, seeing it as the only way to stop Ber, but that didn’t stop her mind from combing through other drastic methods.

NAV! Can I use Torpidity stacks to put her out!?

“I am afraid that rest would only intensify the emotions!”

We won’t know until we try!

Frost, removing her gloves, exposed her bare fists as her Touch of Golds wreaked havoc. Mounds of flesh let loose a toxic plume as the walls began to crumble. The Complex Heart was at a mere 2,000,000 HP.

It would not be long until it was over.

“I HATE YOU RES! I HATE YOU! WHY DID YOU ALL PROSCRIBE ME FOR WANTING TO PICK BERRIES!?”

“WE’RE IDENTICAL SO WHY – WHY DID EVERYONE PRETEND THAT THEY COULDN’T HEAR ME SHOUT LIKE I WAS SPEECHLESS –!”

Res embraced her sister, bearhugging her as Cer took over and staved the Fragments away. Ber froze in her arms, as revitalized by the familiar warmth. The woman trembled and looked down to see the pleading face of her sister, whose eyes glistened with tears.

“BER! It’s ok! I’m right here like always–! So – SO –!”

“Why… is it always you Res? Does anyone know how much I tried? I sacrificed so much to protect you… But when I wanted just a small piece of what you had… what I wish I had, everyone looked at me like I was the ugliest thing they ever laid their eyes on.” Ber’s voice softened, her body still trembling as she spoke from the bottom of her heart.

“WHY DID MOTHER CHOOSE YOU!?”

“MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME SHE LOVED ME! BUT I LOVED HER MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE!”

“WHY WAS I NOT ALLOWED TO STAY WARM AT NIGHT!?”

“WHY WAS I PUNISHED FOR TAKING THAT STUFFED TEDDY BEAR!”

“That… Ber… Ber.” Res, after being at a lost for words, managed to find her footing, knowing well how important it was to keep her mind straight in this trying time. “Frost – Get the fuck away! Please… Get away. You… You’ll only make it so much more worse!”

“Sorry Frost, but you’re really going to tip her over the edge… You’re… just like her to all of us. I’m begging you, please don’t come any closer!”

Cer suddenly began to send electric slashes at Frost, understanding exactly what Res meant by this. Frost, heeding both the advice of the triplets and Nav, clicked her tongue and focused on the Heart instead as the soft heartbeats became rapid.

Ber needs those two more than anything else right now. I want to believe that they can do something about it.

“Frost… I regret to inform you that ‘you’ cannot heal everyone.”

I know. I know… I KNOW!

The heartbeat played in the back of her mind as she reluctantly listened on. Die Agnosis did not work on Ber, even though her emotions were beginning to take a drastic turn. The only function it seemed to have at all were the visions it created.

“Her chapter… is now complete. O Ber. Do you recognize the anguish? Pretending to be someone else when you wanted something simpler in life? Isolated and forgotten since the day of your conception. Hunted by humans. Neglected by your kin – Left in the cold of the night all for the sake of someone else’s happiness... O Ber. From the mere voices alone, I interpret your chapter as the intro of a tragedy –”

Complex Heart | HP: 300,000

Frost’s Touch of Golds had nearly reduced the Complex Heart to nothing but a mound of smoldering corpses. The Memory Bistro was nowhere to be seen afterwards. The egg-shaped Heart collapsed into itself; the paper ball long incinerated alongside all traces of mounds that produced the Fragments of Ber.

She deeply bemoaned that there was little she could do to help. But the one other thing she hadn’t tried was to touch Ber’s heart with Die Agnosis again. With the HP of the Heart rapidly dwindling, and as the world beyond began to reveal itself as the mounds of flesh cleared their horizons –

– She threw her Atelier Item at them without a single word, keeping her presence as invisible as possible from Ber. Cer caught it, glanced at Frost and, to her relief, nodded with worried eyes. She wanted to ask for help. Cer truly did, but she also understood the ramifications if Frost approached any closer.

“Res… I… Am the strongest wolf, right?” Ber questioned as their embrace turned into a circle of clasped hands. Cer was involved as well. Sandwiched between her and Ber’s hand was the stethoscope.

And yet nothing happened. Nothing changed… No.

Somehow, everything seemed to mellow. The heartbeat, which she now realized belonged to Ber, returned to its gentle sinus pulse. There were no threats anymore. Just silence, and the crackling of fire. In the distance Ignis and Jury continued on with their onslaught, and Ignis could be seen waving when Nav delivered the good news.

Ber had seemingly calmed down, her breathing now stabilized all thanks to the warmth of her sisters.

“Mm. That’s right. Ber. I’m sorry. I know it’s all back in the past, but it still feels like a fresh wound. To all of us. My eyes. Cer’s jaw and tongue. We all suffered. But – It’s ok now! We’re… we’re slowly getting back. Building ourselves.” Res spoke with a voice filled with hope as Frost silently watched on.

“Ber~ It’s alright! I get outbursts as well! So you don’t gotta be afraid or angry, alright, cause I do them all the time! You know me!” Cer exclaimed, her tail brushing against Ber’s playfully.

For some reason however, their ears never perked. They were flattened as if the weight of their burdens sat atop them.

“Frost. Her Nex production is dropping. Thank me for stopping you from beating her unconscious.”

Yeah. Thank you. Going unconscious makes it worse, huh? How do you know that?

“It was an excuse. Because I don’t believe that is the correct way to prevent it.” Nav boldly claimed, angering Frost slightly.

But in the end, it seemed like everything worked out. Ber’s smile soon returned, and her normal demeanor was back as she pulled her hands away, took a step back and clutched onto the wrist of her left hand.

“… so why was I treated worse than everyone? If I was the strongest, then why did they look at me like I was unwanted?” Her Atelier Item was peeled off, revealing a pristine hand that reached for something intangible.

Suddenly, something flashed before Frost’s eyes. A small snippet of a vision played as she saw through the eyes of a woman all of a sudden, reaching out for a stuffed teddy bear left unattended on a warm bed.

These tiny hands belonged to someone Frost didn’t recognize. From a thatch house, wandering away from a village of Demi-Humans, the little girl walked over to crystal-clear lake. And in there, she looked down at herself in the water on the eve of that cold night, and she saw a tiny Ber staring back, holding the teddy bear in her arms as she toyed with her hair.

“Why… do you have to mention your hurt like it matters more than mine? Res… for 30 years I thought this was ok. That so long as we were all together then everything was ok. But I, for the first time… felt what it was like to be held by mom again.” Ber slowly spoke, touching each individual finger like the keys of a piano.

“… Don’t… Don’t be like Cer. Frost… isn’t a replacement. You know that.” Res uttered, completely shocking Frost by the revelation.

But it was short lived. Suddenly, yet another vision flashed before her eyes. A wave of confusion rolled her along a vast sea of turmoil. She couldn’t tell what real or not anymore as she saw through a younger Ber’s eyes once again, plucking berries as she laughed with those Frost believed to be close with her.

But as night fell, and as Ber returned to the lake alone, checking on her short hair, she heard the mocking voices of those she thought were friends. Over time, Ber’s clothing became less and less feminine to match Res’, and in time she stopped looking into the lake and instead, her mirror became the people around her.

“I know that as well. Ber – nothing was your fault.” Cer assured, patting her sister’s head and touching the onyx hairclip she still wore. “… yeah. Even you’re changing. For the better!”

“You’re right… nothing was my fault. I did my best, didn’t I?” Ber whispered, raising a hand to the hairclip gifted by Frost. “Punching everything. Scratching… being the worst I could be, so I keep you safe. By becoming you, I could never become me. Your praises of me were truly only directed to yourself.”

Then, the last vision of a Ber silently weeping with her hands severed in a blazing village roused a sorrowful surge within Frost’s chest as Res’ ears somehow drooped further, her eyes trembling at the spiteful words that left her sister’s mouth.

“… Ber…?” Res whispered, reaching out for her but had her hand slapped away.

“… and so I kept my mouth shut. Sealed it off with both palms and cried into them at the top of my lungs, hoping for someone to hear me. I, who lived in that lake like an ugly duckling, wanting to be more than what you all made me into.”

“I’m… I’m so sorry.” Res tried again to embrace Ber, however –

< “And to this day, I still lament.” >

< “To this day, I still sip on the sweet syrup of Serum G.” >

< “To this day I still yearn to become beautiful.” >

< “Stagnant, like the Moon I’ve become.” >

< “And so I cry for help with muffled shouts.” >

< “Heard only by the reflection in the lake.” >

“B-BER!” Cer cried as Frost roared at the top of her lungs.

“CEEEEEEEEEEEEER! TOUCH HER WITH MY ITEM! USE IT ON HER BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!”

Suddenly, an invisible force knocked Res and Cer back as Ber’s body began to tremble. The surroundings quickly changed, but it was only Frost who could comprehend this. It was at that moment when Frost realized what was happening before Nav could even flash the prompt.

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

< BER’S CORRUPTION EVENT HAS BEGUN >

Frost’s body moved on its own. Adrenaline unlike any other coursed through her veins as her flames erupted. Her Touch of Golds weaved past Cer and Res as they skidded along the ground, snatching Die Agnosis and plunging it straight for Ber’s chest.

THIS BETTER WORK NAV OR THERE’LL BE HELL TO PAY! Frost, nearing her breaking point, was as desperate as the Cer and Res.

“NOOOO! BEEEEEER!” Cer, as she skidded on her feet. “FROST! You… You can save her right! PLEASE! That’s Ber! That’s my sister Ber!” She shouted, clawing at the ground as she prepared herself to join Frost.

“Ber… is that… how you really felt… all this time…?” Res uttered in complete disbelief, laying on her knees defeatedly like she lacked the will to stand.

“I’LL DO EVERYTHING IT TAKES TO BRING HER BACK! BER! WAKE – UP!” With one decisive lunge, the end of Die Agnosis reached the chest of Ber and in that moment, everything suddenly warped around her.

Reality itself collapsed as a picturesque, child-like painting of the mountains of Grandis replaced the background of their world. Res and Cer were nowhere to be found as her boots sunk into the shallow pool of a grand lake too cartoonish to be anything real.

In fact, everything was painted in watercolor, splashed onto the objects of the world like how a child would. Her flames were cleansed. Not a single one of her manifested Corrupted were worn within either, as if it were stripped from her.

Ber on the other hand could be seen far ahead, seeping into the ankle-deep water. It was a much younger Ber, dressed in a cloud of black feathers and an eggshell worn on her head. Her hands clasped her mouth as she muffledly uttered:

< “Can anyone hear me…?” >

< “It’s so cold…” >

< “Someone please hold out a hand. I desperately want to be noticed.” >

< “I don’t wanna be alone…” >

This is… This is Ber’s mind!? Her heart!?

Her question was immediately answered by a passing prompt.

< BER’S EMOTIONAL STATE >

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

< HAILSTORM >

< THE ARBITER’S TRUMPET SINGS >

< ALL HP IS FORFEITED WITHIN A CORRUPTED’S EMOTIONAL STATE >

< MANA WILL REPLACE HP >

< YOU WILL BE EJECTED FROM BER’S EMOTIONAL STATE IF YOUR MP REACHES 0 >

< ALL STATS HAVE BEEN CUT INTO 1/4 OF THEIR ORIGINAL VALUE >

“That’s… Ber… Can we – Can we save her!?” Frost demanded, causing the girl to shudder.

Status!

Unloved Duckling
Ber
< Born without knowing wherein my beauty lays, I allow the world to become my mirror, forever wishing to become the swans I adore >

AFFINITY : Lament
LEVEL : 90     ORIGN : Trauma     HP : 60,000     ATT : 600     MAG ATT : 0
ATT DEF : 250     MAG DEF : 0     MP : 0     RESIST : Nil     AGI : 0

< CONDITION: Unloved Duckling will enter the next phase when HP reaches 0. Ignoring the Unloved Duckling will cause it to enter a Breakdown State >

< This means Ber will become a husk of her former self… In the same vein as the Wandering Healers. This is what becoming a ‘Shell’ must mean >

< This will not be a standard fight. You are also considerably weakened within this bizarre mindset of hers >

< SUPPRESSION REQUIREMENT: None. The Unloved Duckling cannot be suppressed while inside of its Emotional State >

< SUBJUGATION REQUIREMENT: Unloved Duckling will be defeated after its final phase reaches 0 HP >

“I CAN’T REALIZE OR SAVE BER!?” Frost nearly despaired, but Nav, like the good friend it was, mentioned that there was yet another way.

< I am not finished just yet! >

< SALVATION CRITERIA: Engage with the Unloved Duckling and all its subsequent phases. It wants nothing more than to know that you are there >

< Have hope Frost! Go save Ber! Don’t let the Impuritas have their way! >