Chapter 5: Intersection

Chapter 5:
Intersection

 

WHEN A PERSON is at their absolute lowest, there’s no relief in sleep. Cyrill’s nightmares were tame things—they were fed on so little real horror—but they came uninterrupted and in force.

“Congrats!” “You’re the pride of the village.” “Chosen by Origin, huh? That’s great, Cyrill.”

She pretended to be happy about it, but for whose benefit? Maybe it would have been best not to get their hopes up. Even if she was objectively stronger than others, she’d still fall short in their eyes if she couldn’t meet their expectations.

Several years ago, she started learning how to grow potatoes from her parents. They gave Cyrill her own corner of the field, and she worked at it until she finally had a crop worth selling at market. One day, she cooked the potatoes she’d grown herself into some tasty treats for her parents. They ruffled her hair and commented on how good it tasted.

That…that was happiness.

“Now don’t you worry about the harvest. You have your own role to fill in this world.”

Her father beamed, and her mother nodded.

Not wanting to disappoint her parents, Cyrill forced a grin and assured them she would. How would things have turned out if she’d broken down crying and confessed that she didn’t want to do it?

But even when she did, nothing changed. Such was the curse of her nightmares.

She woke from a nightmare into an equally terrible reality.

Cyrill opened her eyes where she slept on the cold, hard earth. She was behind a shop on the east side of the Central District. She and Mute came here in search of a place where no one would stumble across them. As she stared blankly into the distance, a gray scene unfolding in front of her caught her attention: it was a swarm of insects squirming along in search of food. She felt almost envious as she watched.

“You awake?” Mute had woken up before her; she was sitting on the ground with her back against a wall.

“Yeah.”

They’d talked a fair bit since meeting the night before.

Mute spoke up. “Humans…think of themselves. Others…their dreams…they can’t understand.”

In other words, it was impossible to meet everyone’s expectations. And yet, Cyrill still feared more than anything else the look of disappointment when you let someone down.

“Kindness…justice…anger…hatred. They’re all…different words. But the same…meanings. All…about yourself.”

The world existed for everyone to use to satisfy their desires. If someone who gave and someone who took happened through sheer happenstance to cross paths, then that was called kindness. Nothing more, nothing less.

“If you live…for others…someday…you die.”

Righting wrongs, blaming yourself—these acts were also done only for your own sake. Neither could heal the wounds of the person who’d hurt. So ultimately you were obliged to follow your own heart…or at least, so Mute kept emphasizing.

But Cyrill couldn’t change just like that. She was wrapped in a leaden chain of depression and regret. She couldn’t rise from her depths with that burden on her.

“It’s about to start. Come.” Mute stood up and began to walk away.

Cyrill rubbed the sleep from her eyes and slowly stumbled after the small figure.

 

***

 

She tried asking Mute what was about to begin. Her questions were met with silence.

They pulled down the hoods of their dingy robes to keep people from recognizing them and walked on into the East District, where the houses quickly grew bigger and more prestigious. This only made the two of them stand out more.

Cyrill sensed someone watching them and began to look around, only to find Mute bearing down on a man in his twenties.

“Mute?” She hesitantly called after the young girl, but Mute kept going until she reached the man and grabbed his shoulder. The man glared down at her; Mute seemed unfazed as she cast her spell.

“Sympathy.”

Cyrill watched as the man’s eyes immediately went blank. She heard a wet squishing noise. Mute took her hand off the man and, her job complete, began to walk off again. They ended up in a park where Mute ran from person to person, whispering “Sympathy,” as she made contact with them.

“What are you doing, Mute?”

Once again, no response. But the way people stopped moving the moment that Mute touched them made Cyrill begin to feel a sense of dread well up within her.

She had no real idea who Mute was or what kind of power she possessed.

They made one lap around the park, then left through a different gate. Mute led them to a spot where they could stand by and observe what would happen in the park.

“Everything’s ready…to start.”

The collar of her robe was stained a deep red.

“Ready? What does that mean?”

“Sympathy. Connected thoughts. Unified. Consciousness in disarray. Loss…self. Full…of Origin. I…control.”

“Unified? Origin? Control? I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it…”

“Watch. Then you’ll see.”

Cyrill turned her attention to the park as instructed. A moment later, a man walking through the park slowly raised his fist to his mouth and began to eat it, tearing his lips in the process as he forced it into his mouth and down his throat, all the way to the elbow.

“…Huh?”

Cyrill couldn’t wrap her mind around what she was witnessing.

The man flapped around on the ground in agony like a fish out of water for a time before finally dying of asphyxiation.

“Is he…dead?”

She’d never actually seen someone die before. And now here it was, happening right in front of her. It was all so surreal that Cyrill was oddly calm about the situation.

A woman near the dead man began to smash her head into the paving stones until her forehead split, blood pouring from the wound like the contents of an upended bowl. She could hear a wet squelching sound with each blow, and yet the woman didn’t stop. Even when her arms grew too weak to continue, she used the last of her strength to scrape her head against the ground until she stopped moving entirely.

“Aaaaaaaaum…”

A little boy nearby was feasting on his arm like he would a sweet pastry.

“S-s-something’s h-h-h-happening!”

The boy’s mother reached up and tore out her own eyeballs with her bare hands before throwing them aside. She stuck her hands into the cavities, tearing away at her brain.

“Mute…are you making them do that?”

She responded without hesitation. “Yes. It’s me.”

This disturbing sight was what she had brought Cyrill out to see.

“Live…as you please. Who cares…about others. This pain is proof…that I lived.”

“N-no, you can’t do this! It’s wrong!” Cyrill’s voice was shrill as she glared at Mute. She couldn’t get a good look at Mute’s expression; her hood hung too low.

“Nothing…is strange. Nothing…is right. I…am me. And doing…as I wish.”

“People are dying! You can’t just do that to other people!”

“I’ve…no interest in other people. There’s nothing…wrong with…selfish. I have…no reason…to stop.”

This was all true. She’d said that there was no point in living for others and that you should see your dreams through. Yet Cyrill refused to believe that it was okay for people to die in order to fulfill those ends.

“Cyrill…wants to stop me. In that case…kill me.”

“I…well, I…”

“I…cannot beat a hero. Cyrill…can kill me. If I live…I won’t stop.”

Mute was right. All Cyrill had to do was draw her blade. She could put an end to the suffering of those strangers down below and spare the living.

That’s what a hero would do.

But she couldn’t bear to take on the burden of killing Mute. Putting an end to this soulless killer would only lead to an even heavier burden on Cyrill’s soul, one that would never change—one she could never be saved from. It would be worse than what she was dealing with, even now.

“Nnnnngaaaaaaah!” She let out a powerful cry and tensed up her right arm, and yet she still couldn’t draw her sword.

If she didn’t kill Mute, then these deaths would weigh on her. Yet if she did, then so would Mute’s. All roads led to hell. While she vacillated, Mute’s victims only increased in number. She could hear the faint sounds of flesh tearing and bones breaking echoing from the park.

“I just can’t kill…but…but…what should I do??”

She dropped to her knees and shouted. She felt as if she were sinking into a swamp she could never climb out from.

“You…choose. Everything is…for your own benefit.”

“But…but…I don’t know what I want!”

She felt as if she were whining like a child as she turned her gaze to look up at Mute.

From this angle, she was finally able to catch a glimpse of the face hidden by the hood: the uncannily mature face she’d expected to see was nowhere to be found. In its place was a pulsating swirl of raw muscle. The muscle twitched in time with her heartbeat, slowly gyrating in a clockwise motion as blood came out in splashes.

“Haah…” A breathless, almost silent gasp was the best Cyrill could muster.

She looked just like Maria did when Cyrill last saw her. Just what was this girl, and what were she and Maria up to? More importantly, how did she get herself drawn into all this?

“Aaah…” Her voice had returned, though the swamp of fear, confusion, and despair wouldn’t let her focus enough to form words. The bizarre creature known as Mute stared at Cyrill in silence as the muscles on her face continued to convulse.

Cyrill let out a long, pained groan. She knew she was obliged to stop this girl. Even in her traumatized state, her need for justice was still firmly entrenched in her…at least on some level.

But in the face of such immense fear, that desire amounted to little.

Cyrill shook her head to the side, then back and forth, before finally clasping it firmly in both hands and letting out a furious scream as all the emotions whirling around within her tried to escape at once.

“Aah!!” She screamed as long as she could before it was suddenly cut short, and she dropped to the ground, unconscious.

 

***

 

Flum stood there in a trance as the violent scene played out. She was jolted back to reality by a loud scream, prompting her to take off in its direction. Her heart tensed up slightly every time she ran across the body of yet another victim of such a cruel, painful death. She tried to wave off the thought as she finally broke out of the park. Ahead, a figure lay passed out on the ground, and a young girl clutching a doll stood next to her.

The young girl had white hair and a familiar red and black spiral where her face should be.

“Mute, is that you?” Flum summoned up her prana and sent the energy into her legs to help her close the distance. Her fingers tensed, anticipating the moment she would have to draw the Souleater.

Mute might be a child, and Nekt had already asked for her assistance in finding her siblings…but there was just no coming back from the tragedy the young girl had unleashed.

No…the more she thought about it, a quick death on the end of a sword would be almost too kind.

There was a brief gust of wind, and Flum caught sight of the figure lying at Mute’s feet, causing her face to immediately cloud over.

She shouted out to her without even thinking.

“Cyrill?!”

Why was Cyrill, who was supposed to be missing, out here with Mute? Flum was desperate to learn how this had happened, but action was more important than thought for the moment.

“I…won’t lose…to a weakling like…Flum.” Mute took on a fighting stance as the spiral on her face began to gyrate faster.

Fixing a steely glare on her target, Flum called up her sword and dashed behind Mute, slashing at her back with all her might. Her reversal magic collided with a field of distortion, resulting in an immense spark of energy.

“Oh my…your reversal power…is impressive.”

Looking back, she spied the green-haired figure who had cast the distortion blast. “Fwiss!”

“You’re not gonna get Mute on my watch. Distortion!” A continuous swirl of energy appeared in the palm of his outstretched hand before forming into a ball and blasting off in Flum’s direction.

“Reversion!” Flum focused all her reversal magic into her blade, cleaving through his projectile.

“Heh, I’d been saving up my power for that one, too.”

“Just because the church abandoned you doesn’t mean that you can just kill indiscriminately! Nekt would never approve of this kind of behavior!”

“I don’t need you to preach to me! And who cares about Nekt, anyway! What a coward, running off like that…!”

“We…will kill…everyone in…the capital.”

“Mute’s right. We’re going to be the great equalizers.”

“Is this for Mother?”

“No. We have…other reasons.”

“Of course, Mother is still first and foremost on our minds. But at the end of the day, we were created to be biological weapons, just like Chimera. We were born and raised to kill. We have no other choice but to prove that we aren’t the dead ends that people say we are.”

“I’m going to kill you,” said Flum.

“Right, just like that. We’re going to slaughter anyone we can—without prejudice, without forethought—and leave our mark on the world, one way or another.”

Flum clenched her teeth as she felt red-hot anger run through her veins. More than anything, she was furious at Mother, the one who had left these two young children with no choice other than to live this way.

“Ink, your friend, she’s leading a completely normal life now! With us!”

“First and second…generation…are different. How we’re made. Power. We are different creatures.”

“It’s your obsession with generations and dragging other people into your problems that makes you the inferior of the two!”

“Shut up with your awful lies!”

“First…was a failure. But first…lives on.”

“It’s funny, in a way. She was a failure as a weapon, but as a living creature, I guess she’s done better than us.” Fwiss let out a cold, mirthless laugh.

Just one look at their expressions gave Flum a sense of how they could kill so easily: they saw no value in their own lives. If your life means nothing, then the same applies to everyone else by extension—a fact that makes it remarkably easy to kill without regret.

“I think that’s enough talking for now,” said Fwiss. “We’d best get out of here before another hero shows up.”

“You think I’m just going to let you get away?? I’m not letting you take Cyrill!”

Flum lunged the moment she saw Mute try to seize Cyrill. Fwiss stepped between them and threw out his hand, summoning up more distortion energy.

“Even your reversal won’t be able to stop this, you know.”

“You think I give a damn?!”

She threw a gauntleted fist at Fwiss, the blow connecting with his stomach with a meaty thud. The young boy flew backward as Flum hefted her Souleater up into the air.

“Haaaaaaah!!” She threw all her energy into a Prana Shaker.

Escape was out of the question for Fwiss. He threw his arms in front of his body and concentrated all of his energy into another distortion field. Alas, Flum’s attack drew deep from her god-defying affinity; it cut through Fwiss’s defense as if it were empty air.

“Owww…”

Her Prana Shaker lost much of its energy by the time it reached its mark, only managing to leave a gash in Fwiss’s arm.

“I’ll admit it, I was a little scared back there. Only a little while ago, you were just another weakling. It’s bad enough that you won’t run away when you ought to, but now you won’t even die.” Fwiss smirked at Flum before taking off at full tilt.

Just as Flum was about to give chase, the sound of someone groaning caused her to stop.

“Nng…gah! I don’t get it! What do the Children want with Cyrill??” Flum ran her hands through her hair. She turned back toward the park in search of the owner of the voice. As she cast her gaze across the park, she caught sight of Gadhio running toward her.

“You okay, Flum??”

“I’m fine. But I can hear someone nearby who’s still alive. Can you help me look?”

The two split up and searched the park until they found their survivor. They brought the figure back over to one of the park benches and laid them down to begin triage. Gadhio ripped off pieces of his torn coat to make impromptu bandages.

“Gadhio, your coat… Were you in a fight?”

“I was attacked by this kid—Luke, was it?—who used this strange Rotation power.”

“So it looks like all the Children were out here in the East District. They had Cyrill, too.”

“Why would the Children have Cyrill?”

“I have no idea. All I know is that they don’t plan to stop here.”

The wind filled the park with the coppery scent of blood. Flum clenched her jaw, steadying herself as her tunnel vision eased off and the full horror of the scene set in.

“So they just plan on killing indiscriminately? If they’re going to pop up at random like this to start their killing sprees, it’s going to be hard to stop them.”

Now done with his patient, Gadhio examined the park, casting Scan liberally as he went.

“Their names and stats are all the same.”

“That’s just like…”

“Just like what you ran across with Dein’s men.”

Flum had been confronted by around twenty or so men when she was in the middle of trying to save Ink. That desperately conceived crew had had the same name and exactly the same stats down to the last, even though they each looked different. They’d also lost any sense of individual will in the process.

“Luke has Rotation, Fwiss has Distortion,” said Flum. “I guess this is Mute’s ability.”

“That’s going to be a real problem. If there’s no limit to how many people she can do this to, the whole capital could be in danger.”

So far, she’d only used her power to direct large groups of people out in public to hurt themselves. But in the worst-case scenario, there was nothing stopping her from turning her victims into an impromptu army, outfitted with any sharp or bludgeoning objects you could find in the streets.

“I think I’m going to talk to Leitch and see if he’s picked up any new information,” said Flum.

“Got it. If you’re going to stay in the East District, then I’ll continue the search in the Central District. We can deal with the West District later, since that’s farthest out.”

“Should we just leave the bodies like this here in the park?” She wished that she could at least offer up some sort of memorial for them.

“The church knights will be here to take care of them shortly. If we aren’t careful, someone might come across us preparing the bodies and arrest us on sight.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“There’s nothing for you to feel bad about. If you let something like this bother you, then you’ll never be able to move on.”

“Hmm…”

Though Gadhio initially sounded cold-hearted, his words came from a place of caring. Rather than spending her time wallowing in her sadness, she was better off focusing her energies on stopping the Spiral Children.

Flum couldn’t argue with that.

 

***

 

Not long after arriving at Leitch’s manor, Flum was escorted to a reception room. In spite of the fact that she hadn’t made an appointment, he dropped what he was doing to come and see her.

Leitch sat down on his sofa and cut to the chase. “What happened back there at the park?”

Somehow, he knew Flum would have insight into the situation. Before she even had a chance to answer, he went on to explain.

“One of my servants hasn’t returned, and we suspect they were caught up in all this. We’ve asked the guards, but they’ve been of no help. Not like I expect them to know much, anyway.”

She was impressed at how quickly he was able to catch up. The events in the park had only just occurred.

“One of the Children took control over the people in the park and made them commit suicide,” she said.

“They…what? But why now, after having worked in the dark for so long??”

“The church’s written them off. They have nowhere else to go, and they’re taking it out on as many people as they can.”

“Written them off? Where did you hear that??”

Flum told him about how Gadhio had learned of the Children’s base and what he found there.

Leitch steepled his fingers. A dark look came over his face. “I can’t believe that the church would pull off such an audacious move. They must have a great deal of faith in the Chimera project then.”

That was certainly one way of looking at things. Taking advantage of this lull in the conversation, Flum pulled out a piece of paper and showed it to Leitch.

“And this is?”

“I’ve been getting these since yesterday. Any idea what they might mean?”

Leitch studied the message closely: “Four days remain.”

“Today I got another one, this time with ‘Three days remain’ written on it.”

“The ink and paper are both of a high quality. You rarely see anything like this outside the cathedral or the castle. What’s more, I don’t really get the impression of anything sinister from the message itself, and there’s nothing to be made of the penmanship.”

“The cathedral or the castle, huh? The only allies we had in the royal army are out of action right now, and… Hmm, I can’t really think of anyone else, but…” Flum searched the depths of her memories and murmured to herself.

In the furthest reaches of her memory, finally a face came to mind. They weren’t an ally per se, but they also didn’t seem to hold any ill will toward her.

“Ah, wait, Satuhkie.”

“The cardinal? Isn’t he one of the central figures of the church?”

“Right, but he had strong connections with the royal army. Henriette seemed to trust him.”

“I guess there’s something there. He’s younger than the other cardinals and more of a realist than the rest of his cohort. But if he was cultivating some kind of relationship with the royal army, despite the situation with the church knights, it could mean he was trying to change things from within? Although…wait. No, this looks as if it were written in a woman’s hand.”

“Woman? Maybe Satuhkie’s…no, I don’t have any proof of that.”

“Regardless of whether this is a warning or a threat, what’s clear is that the clock’s ticking.”

“So I guess something bad is going to happen in three days’ time.” Flum slumped down and let her forehead rest on the table with a thud. “I’ve already got my hands full with this Children problem. And now something bigger is on the horizon?”

“Or perhaps this is a warning about the Children.”

“Hmm…in either case, I guess I have to take care of them in the next three days.” Flum lifted her head from the table and looked up at the ceiling. She sighed heavily.

“They say this herbal tea eases a weary soul.”

“I appreciate it.” Flum sipped at the tea and let her body relax.

“All right! Thanks for everything, Leitch. I feel a little better now that I know who’s behind these letters.”

She stood up and gave a polite bow. Leitch stood up and modestly waved it off.

“I’m sure Welcy will be looking into this matter shortly, so I’ll let her know that she should provide you with any assistance she can. Please don’t hesitate to ask for her help. Obviously, I’m also happy to help out if I can.”

“Thank you; I just may need to call on you.”

With that, Flum left Leitch’s manor.

She couldn’t get her mind off the sad expression he’d worn when she left. He was probably hurting from the loss of a beloved servant, someone who he had once shared his home with. If he looked that sad on the outside, she could only imagine the turmoil within.

On the far side of the gate, she looked up at the darkening sky and let out a deep breath. She wasn’t going to wait out the rest of the countdown. She knew that the Children would continue their killing spree.

She had to keep moving if she hoped to stop them.

Flum continued to roam the East District in search of the Children and Cyrill.

 

***

 

At that same moment, Gadhio wandered down a main thoroughfare in the Central District. This was where the majority of the citizens of the capital lived and, by extension, a prime target for anyone wishing to commit mass murder.

He followed the road toward the capital’s southern gate. Right around the halfway point…

“Aaaaaaugh!!”

He heard a scream echo through the streets and began to shove through the crowd.

That was when he caught sight of a caravan careening down the street, heedless of the pedestrians. There were no horses drawing it. Those unlucky enough to get hit were torn into chunks and tossed aside by the wheels. A fountain of blood splashed out from behind the cart.

The road was packed full of people who were now in a panic to escape, stumbling over one another and toppling like dominos in the process.

“This stops now!” Gadhio used his magic to pull the ground up beneath him before lunging up into the air and landing on the cart. He drew his immense sword and smashed one of the spinning wheels with a loud THWACK. The wheel was severely deformed by the blow, wobbling back and forth for a few moments before tumbling off. The cart lost much of its balance and began to wobble, snaking down the street.

Shreds of flesh and splashes of blood stained Gadhio’s clothes as the cart continued its murderous spree. It was like a scene straight from hell, but he kept his wits about him and smashed the remaining three wheels. The cart smashed to the ground with a loud, ear-piercing screech and a shower of sparks until it finally came to a stop.

Gadhio looked back over his shoulder and witnessed the trail of carnage left in its tracks. He bit his lip and turned his attention to finding who was responsible for this.

But only a moment later, he heard yet another scream coming from a different direction, followed shortly thereafter by the sounds of a cart tearing through the street. This time he saw several smaller carts racing down the street toward unsuspecting victims.

Looking closer, he also noticed a young boy wearing a robe with the hood pulled low over his face.

“There he is…”

He figured it was likely Luke, using his gift of Rotation. This was only the second time they’d crossed paths; Gadhio wanted nothing more than to give chase, but he also couldn’t just leave the carts running rampant like this.

Gadhio leaped high up into the air toward the speeding carts and brought down his blade in several quick slashes. By the time he landed, each cart was reduced to harmless pieces scattered in all directions.

He started to scan the streets for Luke, but a crowd surrounded him to thank their newfound hero, causing him to lose track of the boy. Now he was stuck.

“Dammit!”

His anguished cry was quickly lost in the cheers of the crowd.