Chapter 26: The Champion

Chapter 26:
The Champion

 

AFTER HACKING through the wall of flesh, Flum found herself in an empty chamber on the other side. She held her Souleater tightly as she gazed around the room. Up ahead, she spotted three cores embedded in the flesh.

One core had been used on the giant and another on the tentacles, meaning that this whole massive creature had originally consisted of five cores. As soon as Flum stepped toward them, her path was immediately blocked by a human-sized wall of muscle forced up from the ground below. After a few moments, the muscle twisted into a human shape, clothing and all.

It was Mother.

“Well, you…you…you!! You really messed this one up!!” Mother threw out his hand and shot a blast of spinning air toward Flum.

Flum easily dodged to the side and lunged forward, slicing straight down toward Mother.

She missed him only by a hair as he used his Connection ability to teleport out of the way.

Figuring something like this would happen, Flum dismissed her Souleater in a flash of light and used the momentum of her swing to kick off the ground and reverse direction, sending her flying straight into Mother as he rushed behind her.

He threw his right arm up to intercept her kick, but her reversal magic overcame the Origin power pumping through him and smashed the limb. He clutched at his shattered arm and stumbled backward.

Flum took advantage of the brief reprieve to fall back. Once she put some space between them, she summoned her Souleater. With two quick slashes, she drew a cross in the air, pierced the center of the formation, and shot a powerful blast toward Mother.

He made no attempt to even block the blast and took it head-on, chopping his body into four large chunks in the process.

Moments later, each of the chunks transformed and grew into another replica of Mother until there were now four facing against Flum.

“I think you’ve had enough fun for now. Why don’t you just be good for once and hand over the cores?” All four Mothers shook their heads wildly and cried in unison. “Not interested. I won’t stop as long as Mother’s still here!”

He’d striven to become a kind mother, to overcome the image of the woman who abused him since birth. He was going to overwrite those painful memories with ones of a happy childhood.

In his mind, he had achieved that goal when he took over the capital and finally became complete.

“My mother, she’s still alive. Look, there she is. Over there, too. And there! Nearly everywhere you look in the capital, there she is! No matter how I looked or what form I took, she was always there to forsake me!”

Flum felt a sense of pity tug at her heart as the four clones screamed in unison. But as she listened to him speak, she realized one undeniable truth.

“You know, you’re no different from her. You both destroyed everything that posed you the slightest inconvenience.”

He was undeniably Susannah Smithee’s child.

“Wh-what?! I…I’m like…her?!”

“You said that she’s all around, didn’t you? Well, she’s inside you, too.”

“No, that can’t be! I…I’m a kind mother; I love my children!”

“I’m sure she felt the same way. ‘It’s fine, it’s just tough love,’ right? Hurting them, denying their humanity, and in the case of the second-generation Children, delivering liberal beatings to vent your own stress. All told, I’d say you’re pretty similar.”

“Love? Th-that…that was all…for…”

Susannah Smithee was a poor excuse for a mother—there was no denying that. But this revelation robbed Mich of everything he’d hoped to achieve by surpassing his own mother.

Self-absorbed, being quick to dismiss others, verbally abusing the children who loved him as rejects.

Were those actions no different from what his own mother had done…?

“What…what was I to do? I’ve nothing inside, not flesh nor blood, nothing but a soul my mother hollowed out and died in. What was I to do?!”

“It’s a little late to be asking that now. Besides, Cyrill’s been saying it the whole time: you should have listened to what other people were saying.”

“That would have changed nothing!!”

“You’re right, things don’t change that easily; we’re all lost in our own ways. But you had eight…no, ten long years. Even if you weren’t related by blood, didn’t you feel some sort of affection toward these children after living together for so long? Or am I expecting too much from you?”

“How…how would I know? I was never loved by even my own mother!”

“But those kids understood. Even as they were raised completely isolated from the rest of the world, they still learned to love you.”

Both the Children and Mother began their lives together not knowing what love was. But they’d wound up going down completely different paths—and tragically so.

“Failures. Experiments. These were the excuses you used to avoid having to understand these children. That’s why you never noticed. Maybe nothing would have changed once you took up the Origin core, but at least then you could have been at peace with your death like they were.”

Not that Flum thought that was the best choice, but it at least seemed better than dying with this much unfinished business and unresolved anguish.

“…Fine. I get it. Then tell me one thing: what should I do now?” The four Mothers’ voices spoke to his grief.

Flum rolled her eyes and smirked before casually dismissing his question. “There’s nothing to do. You’re a useless piece of scum who’s beyond saving. So you might as well die.”

It was too late. It didn’t matter anymore. It wasn’t a matter of whether or not he could be saved—in fact, he shouldn’t be.

The realization threw Mother into a fresh rage. Whether it was because it had finally dawned on him that this was the end of his misguided life or because her words had hit too close to home, Flum couldn’t say.

“Shut up!! If I can’t become happy, then all of this was for nothing!!” The four Mothers leaped toward Flum.

“Big words from someone who took so much from others!”

Flum dashed forward, bisecting one of the Mothers as they crossed paths. She spied the three cores embedded in the wall in a triangle pattern.

Just as she was about to make a run for it, a hand sprouted from the meaty floor beneath her and grabbed at her ankle. At the same moment, she sensed something coming up from behind her.

She reversed gravity and fell upward before immediately letting gravity return as she kicked off the ceiling to land behind her opponent. She swung at an upward angle, chopping the figure in two from his right thigh clear through his left armpit.

The severed halves immediately began transforming into two new Mothers.

“I refuse to accept that it’s too late! Killing you will open up even more paths for me!!”

Torso after torso began growing up out of the floor.

“Like I said, killing those who disagree with you won’t change a thing!” Flum once again reversed gravity and ran across the ceiling toward the cores.

“With everyone else gone, I won’t have to look at Mother ever again!”

Innumerable arms began to grow from the ceiling, scrabbling at Flum’s legs. She tried to break free, but she suddenly felt her right foot lock in place and start to tear apart.

“No way…!”

Flum channeled her magic through her body, pulling her leg free before the rotational force could spread. This had the unintended side effect of throwing her back down toward the ground—a combination of the force put into yanking her foot away and having lost her focus on reversing gravity.

She had only seconds to prepare for the next exchange of blows—hardly enough time to heal. That left her with one option: exploit her damaged leg.

“I’ve already told you, you’re not going to get that retribution!!” Flum froze the wound to staunch the bleeding and create a sharpened point before ramming it into Mother’s head on her way down.

She may have put a bit too much force into the strike; although she was successful in smashing one of the Mothers, she was sent tumbling forward as she fought to regain her balance. But at least she was still moving forward. Flum reversed gravity again, floating long enough to draw her sword and stab it into the floor for support. She lunged toward the cores once more, juking between the multiplying Mothers and grasping arms.

She let out a deep breath and summoned up nearly all of her endurance as she transformed it into prana. Win or lose, this was where it would all be decided. There was no sense in holding back now. She was surrounded by Mothers and a forest of arms as far as the eye could see. There was no escaping now.

Flum let them close in on her until they were dangerously close.

“It’s hopeless…”

She even offered up a cry of helplessness to lure them closer still.

“Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!” The prana exploded out of her body, disintegrating Mother’s clones and the arms blocking her way. In an instant, she had a clear path to the cores.

Now that her leg was regenerated, all she had to do was destroy them.

“No! No no no!! I don’t want to die! This is all my mother’s fault for giving birth to me!! Why must I be the one who has to suffer?!”

“You were smart. The church even gave you power. You’ve had countless opportunities to change your life—more than the Children ever did! You’ve no one to blame but yourself for the miserable life you’ve led!”

Flum cleaved through Mother and stomped on the hands that tried to grab at her. She used what little endurance she had left to force her way within reach of the cores.

“HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” She slammed the Souleater squarely through them.

The wall transformed into a giant face, biting down on her right arm.

They were both ready to sacrifice their lives just to win.

“Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarr!!” Mother let loose a bestial howl.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!” But Flum wasn’t done yet. She focused all her reversal magic into her right arm before Mother managed to rip it to shreds, setting off an explosion deep inside his mouth.

“Grooooooooaaaaawr!”

Mother’s face was ravaged, but the cores remained intact. He began to move on Flum’s left arm as the hands growing up from the floor held fast to her ankles. She could hear the sounds of snapping and popping as parts of her body began to twist out of place. Mother’s false bodies multiplied once again; these new bodies peppered her with blasts from behind. Her organs ruptured; another blast found its mark in her shoulder, making it impossible to maintain her grip on the sword.

“Isn’t it beautiful? It turns out, persistence does pay off! Just watch me as I pull victory from the jaws of defeat! Gyahahaha!”

Mother may have been certain of his victory, but Flum wasn’t done yet.

No, that wasn’t quite right. She was searching for her inner strength.

She hurt—mentally and physically. She wanted to go home. All she wanted was to chat with Cyrill, hold Milkit tight, eat some delicious food with her friends, take a bath, and sleep the sleep of the dead. She longed to change out of her tattered clothes and buy something nice so she could dress up once in a while.

There was still so much she wanted to do. That was why she couldn’t lose.

“If persistence is going to win the day, then victory belongs to meeeee!”

Using her Reversion spell, Flum blew away both of her legs, freeing her from the hands holding her in place.

The force of the blast threw her into the air and toward the cores.

“No…you’re not going to…even without any limbs?!”

Flum summoned the Souleater again and bit down hard on the hilt. All she needed to break the cores was her reversal magic—the force of the blow wasn’t important. All she needed to destroy the cores was a way to transfer her magic into them.

“Mmmph…fwaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

Keeping the sword upright with just her teeth was an immense effort, but through sheer persistence, she made contact with the triangular formation of cores. The magic seeped in. The spin reversed. A crack formed.

The clones of Mother and the hands rising from the floor all froze in place.

The now limbless Flum hit the ground and let out a heavy sigh.

“Noooooooooooooo!!” Mother let out a blood-curdling scream. The fleshy walls went pale and began to decay.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh! I’m…falling…apaaaaaaart!!”

The vibrant red of the womb surrounding the capital, and with it the room Flum was in, began to fade away.

Mother’s voice boomed out from all around her. “My dream…my future…no! I don’t want to die! I can’t let my life end without getting the retribution I deserve!”

Somehow, Flum found it in herself to pity him. Though she knew it would be a further blow to his pride, she couldn’t stay quiet.

“Would it really be any different had you lived?”

Had Mother been born to anyone other than Susannah, perhaps he never would have become the person he was now. But that was nothing but a hypothetical. In reality, nothing could change that fact.

“Flum Apricot…you’re a hero, are you not?”

Fate had been both kind and cruel to her. If she’d never met Milkit, she would probably have died cold and alone somewhere long ago. That went for Cyril, Maria, and the others, too. They’d had a significant impact on her life.

No one was immune to straying down the wrong path.

“Aren’t you supposed to use that power to save people? You need to do something—you need to help me.”

She had no intention of treating this negligent creature like a victim.

She walked over to the dying Mich Smithee and shot him a cold glare. “Reversing your life won’t save the likes of you.”

Flum felt the floor give way, gravity pulling her toward the earth below, right as her limbs were nearly finished regenerating.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She could still make out his voice over the roar of the wind.

“This isn’t fair. No one else was willing to save me, so I had no choice but to do it myself. Really, this was the only option left open to me. And yet…yet…you won’t even give me the time of day, even though you’re surrounded by so much love and support? That’s absurd. No, I don’t want to die. Who could agree to such an unfair fate? I… I…”

Flum drew her Souleater as she continued to fall.

“I don’t think that logic really holds after what you’ve done to so many people.”

With a flick of her wrist, she loosed a prana blade and cut clean through the sole surviving part of Mother, putting an end to the angry, sniveling voice for good.

Flum let out a sigh of relief. “It’s finally over…”

The battle had cost so much time and so many lives, far more than any she’d been in before. Looking at the city below, she saw vast swaths of destruction with only a few spots left untouched. Much to her relief, her house was still standing. Whether it was okay for her to be happy about this in light of all the suffering was a question for another time.

Her lips curved upward in a smile as she continued her freefall.

“All riiiiight…”

It was about time to prepare for her landing.

“Nice to have you back, Flum!”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Cyrill coming up beside her. She had tears in her eyes.

“Good to be back, Cyrill.”

They were still about as high up as the tallest of the cathedral’s pillars, but Cyrill could easily jump to such heights in the grip of Brave. Even knowing that, she still was taken aback to see her there.

Cyrill gathered Flum in her arms and landed gently on the ground before carrying her like a newly rescued princess, to reunite with the rest of the group as they caught up.

“Whoa, hey, let me down! This is embarrassing!!”

At the very least, she didn’t want Eterna to see her like this. Flum squirmed around in a desperate attempt to get out of Cyrill’s grasp, but she merely smiled, showing no indication of letting Flum go. For such a reserved person, Cyrill was being surprisingly forceful.

“Well, you’re certainly energetic, aren’t you?”

Maybe she was just happy to see Flum come back to her safely.

“I guess I’ll just have to live with it.”

Though she finally accepted her fate, a sense of foreboding fell over Flum when she noticed that Eterna was the first person to come into view. It looked like Maria had healed her, along with all the others who’d escaped the cocoons. Hopefully, her injuries were still fresh enough in her mind to keep her more toned down than usual.

Alas, it was not to be. A smirk instantly came to Eterna’s face when she saw Flum.

“Are you cheating on Milkit now? I’m gonna have to tell her, you know.”

“That’s the first thing to come out of your mouth??”

Eterna laughed heartily at Flum’s exasperation, a rare display of emotion for her. Her smirk transitioned to a much softer, more caring smile as she reached out to pat Flum’s head. It was clear she’d been worried about her, even if she didn’t say so.

Maria spoke up next from where she stood at Linus’s side. “You did good, Flum.”

“You too, Maria.”

This was the first time they’d seen each other since the battle against Mute. Flum had figured that Maria would probably disappear after this battle as well, so her presence caught her off guard.

Maybe she just hadn’t found a chance to leave yet. Linus was persistent, but it was hard to believe that she would choose to stand by his side and maintain a normal life.

“They had us backed into a corner for a bit there,” said Maria. “We’d be dead if it weren’t for you, Flum.”

“Aw, man,” said Linus, “looks like I owe you one again, Flum.”

“Well, if it weren’t for Maria and Cyrill coming to save me, who knows where I’d be right now.”

“Now that you mention it, we owe a debt of gratitude to the second-generation Children, too.”

“Huh? The second-generation Children?”

Flum turned to look off to see what Maria was gazing at. Up ahead was a red, humanoid creature lying on its side.

“Is that…Nekt? Cyrill, could you let me down??”

“I think it’ll be faster if I carry you.”

Cyrill walked over to Nekt and gently set Flum down. She was still too weak to stand on her own, so she leaned up against Cyrill as she crouched by Nekt. Flum placed a hand on Nekt’s cheek and felt her palm turn slick with blood—warm blood. Looking closer, she watched the muscles twitch in the rhythm of a heartbeat.

Nekt was still alive, but it seemed unlikely she’d last much longer after all the changes the four cores made to her body.

“But why—how did this happen? Didn’t we save everyone? You were going to live on as humans…”

“All the other Children died. Nekt was the only survivor.”

Flum turned at the sound of the familiar voice to find Ottilie…and, much to her surprise, Ink.

“What are…?”

“I won’t bother you with the details, but just know that Milkit and the others are safe.”

“Milkit?!”

“The capital is still too dangerous, but Ink here wouldn’t give up until I agreed to take her along.”

Ink left Ottilie’s side and relied on her senses to guide her to Nekt. Flum took the young girl’s hand and placed it on Nekt’s cheek.

“Oh, Nekt…” There was a certain sadness in her voice. She must have realized that Nekt was no longer human.

Ottilie pulled out a white jewel and held it over Nekt’s face.

“What is that?”

“I’ll explain later. But even as powerful as this is, I doubt it will be able to reverse the effect of four cores.”

The power of Origin was slowly pulled from Nekt’s body. Her mouth and part of her neck returned, though her face and body were largely unchanged. Ottilie had known the reversion core could only do so much, so she’d tried to at least make sure Nekt could speak.

Unfortunately, Nekt seemed unaware of the people around her as she mumbled to herself.

“Hang…on… I’m…coming…”

She raised her palms toward the bright blue sky.

 

***

 

“Oh, good, so you did wait!” Nekt was relieved when she finally saw Mute, Luke, and Fwiss. “I was worried I’d never have a chance to apologize.”

The three figures looked back at Nekt in surprise.

“I’m really sorry. It’s just that I had a favor to pay Flum back for, and it was something only I could do.”

She had no regrets.

If she could make all of their wishes come true before her time came, then she could die with a clean conscience. Or at least, that was what she believed.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that. You don’t think that it was all a waste, do you? The last thing I ever said to you was goodnight, Fwiss. I knew I was going to be saying good morning soon enough. It wasn’t a goodbye at all.”

Nekt slowly approached the three figures, but it wasn’t to be. Right before she could join them, her path was blocked by an invisible wall.

“Oww…hey, what’s a wall doing here? C’mon, stop messing around. I’m coming with you guys. It’s better than just the three of you, right? I mean, we’ll all brothers and sisters here.”

Nekt stretched out her hand again, only to find the wall standing firm.

Fwiss laughed at the sight of Nekt standing there, closely inspecting her own hand. “You really like to play tough, don’t you?”

“Fwiss?”

Luke shoved his hands into his pockets and smirked teasingly at Nekt.

“C’mon, we all know you want to live. It’s written all over your face.”

“Luke…?

Mute hugged her doll tightly and spoke next, her voice gentle but strong. “Live…as you please. For yourself…no regrets. That’s…best.”

“Mute…!”

The three turned their backs on Nekt and began walking away. Far, far away, into a light that was forever out of reach.

“Wait for me! C’mon, you can’t leave me behind!!”

Nekt’s path was blocked by the wall separating the living from the dead. This encounter was nothing short of a miracle. The work of some power watching over her.

“Guys!! C’mon, guys!!!”

That lone ray of light would be all there was to cut through the darkness that threatened to envelop humanity’s very future.

 

***

 

“The cores are…glowing??”

Flum was taken by complete surprise. She’d never seen anything like this before.

Three of the cores buried in Nekt’s chest began to glow, levering themselves free of her body in unison.

“What’s going on?”

Even Maria was at a complete loss from where she stood on the sidelines.

Upon leaving Nekt’s body, the three cores slowly rose up into the air.

Nekt raised her arm as if to call out to the lost cores as the limb began to revert to its original human form. The transformation then spread throughout the rest of her body, returning her to a near-perfect approximation of her original form.

“It’s like some kind of…miracle.”

Ink was quick to correct Ottilie. “No, it’s not a miracle at all.”

“I can hear them…Mute, Luke, Fwiss…!

“Mute’s here?” Cyrill looked up at the sky. Somehow, she could tell which core Mute resided in.

If not a miracle, then what was it? The second-generation Children had, without exception, lived their entire lives with these Origin cores serving as their hearts. All those many years with a core inside them had transformed their bodies into something further and further away from being normal humans.

Origin had infiltrated every part of their being. After all, Origin existed with the solitary goal of controlling, transforming, and bringing grief on the human species.

“But…Origin cores aren’t perfect. There is a way to resist.” Maria mumbled something under her breath, drawing a concerned look from Linus.

“Maria?”

“Loving and caring for others is incompatible with Origin’s power. It can break you free of its control…”

Mother was the best example of that. His constant isolation made him a perfect fit for the Origin cores. The Children, on the other hand, relied on one another to live. Though Origin may have infected every fiber of their bodies, their hearts still had the power to resist.

“This means Origin cannot impose its will unilaterally. Just as Origin filled their bodies, the Children’s wills, in turn, were imprinted upon the cores.”

It was their wish for Nekt to live that caused this miracle to occur. However, it wouldn’t last long with these two powers vying for control within her. The reversion core had managed to reverse the effects and weaken Origin’s power.

The Origin cores rose higher and higher up into the sky until they shattered into hundreds of fragments, each shimmering in the bright sunlight. To Nekt’s blurry eyes, it looked like a beautiful light show.

Even Ink, shrouded in a world of darkness, seemed to be able to see the glimmering shards.

“Just how far…are they gonna go to keep me alive?”

“They love you, Nekt.”

“Don’t be stupid. They…they…”

Nekt and Ink smiled, filled with competing feelings of joy and grief, as they gazed at the sky and thought about their family. Tears flowed freely down Nekt’s cheeks.

In that moment, the Children program finally came to an end.

“I think she’s made it far enough to undergo surgery. You can leave Nekt to me.”

“Thanks, Ottilie.”

“I’m going, too,” said Ink. “Oh, and I’ll be sure to tell Milkit that you’re just fine, Flum!”

“Thanks, I appreciate it. It won’t be that long till I see her again, though.”

Ottilie lifted Nekt. Accompanied by Ink, she headed back toward the facility entrance, which seemed to still be safe at least. Just as Ink was nearly out of sight, Flum stumbled, as if a thread in her had been pulled to the breaking point. Cyrill rushed to her side to help her up, while Flum managed a weak smile.

Up ahead, she saw masses of citizens splayed on the ground, freed from their cocoon prisons the moment Mother died. While the casualties were innumerable, they had managed to save some people, too.

“That’s all thanks to you, Flum.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you, Cyrill.”

“Nah, you’re the one who secured our victory.”

“No way, I needed you there.”

“You’re pretty stubborn for being so weak right now.”

“I’m not going to concede this one.”

Though she’d certainly achieved something great, Flum refused to let it get to her head.

Linus, watching the two trying to out-modest one another, stepped in. “All right then, I guess we all shared the victory.”

“We hardly did anything, you know.”

“Right,” said Cyrill. “I wouldn’t call what we did any sort of notable feat.”

“Well, I don’t see a problem with it. I mean, we fought pretty hard while Flum was up somewhere in the sky, didn’t we?”

Maria laughed. It’d been so long since Linus had heard that sound.

“All right then,” she said. “I guess we all worked pretty hard back there.”

Linus kept the banter going, only too happy to hear her laugh again. Flum felt her body warm up under the gentle rays of the sun and was overcome with a powerful urge to sleep. No, sleep wasn’t even the right word. She’d drained her energy reserves dry; she felt as if she could black out at any moment.

“It’s okay, Flum. Just rest.”

The sole desire to be reunited with Milkit kept Flum awake until that point, but once she heard those sweet, gentle words, she could no longer resist.

“Maybe just…for a bit…” Flum’s eyelids drifted closed, and she let her body relax into the comfort of her friend’s warm embrace.