~~~An Hour Earlier~~~

Hunched over the bank of a canal that cut through the Poor District, a thin boy held a hand to his chest, gasping heavily as he drooled into the water, his reflection showing the sorry state he was in as his brown face was scrunched up, the emerald eye visible under his long hair half-closed as he held himself balanced with the cross-shaped dagger bound to his wrist embedded into the dirt next to him.

His black cloak and low-cut purple outfit were caked in mud, and he was missing the weapon’s sister, cast off in the battle the day before and leaving only loose remnants of the binds on his left wrist.

His sharp teeth clacked together irregularly, echoing across the concrete barrier of the canal as he rambled to himself.  “We eat!  We chew!  We drink!  We crunch!  We ingest!  We keep consuming but we can never swallow it all!”  His voice was high and nasally, the slits of his nose opening and closing and releasing steam into the air as he repeated the same set of words over and over.

His chest and torso, already ghastly thin to the point that he looked almost skeletal, were moving, his ribs and organs twisting and squirming at unnatural angles under his skin as he again drove his face into the canal, noisily sucking up the polluted water with vigor.

As he came back up for air, he heard a low chuckle from behind him, turning his neck with a cracking sound as his long hair raised into the air briefly, before his brain caught up to his instincts and he laughed at the sight of the other person, who held his hands together in a slow clap at his misfortune.  “We’ve never seen you like this, Lye.  To reduce you to a gibbering mess, what must such a meal have tasted like?”

“Fantastic!” Lye responded, his hands raising and sending dirt flying off the blade of the knife, his wrist moving to wipe off the liquid on his chin.  “Nice!  Disgusting!  Scrumptious!  Sickening!  A slurry of manna and effluent!  What a stupendous feast that burns our stomach!”

He brought his unarmed hand to a fist, moving it to drive it into his chest, his mindless cackle never stuttering as he punched his sternum with all his force, repeatedly and with no concern for the pain he was causing himself.  “It’s an unutterable sensation!  Thank you for the meal!  We humbly decline!  It is too much, too toxic an ambrosia!”

The other boy, shorter but appearing slightly older with his gaunt face and wrinkled cheeks, stepped forward, hopping off the grassy mound he’d stood on as his face contorted into a hollow grin.  “Who was it, to have memories so strong that even you were revolted by it?”

Lye shouted the name quickly, before he stood with a start, spinning with his arms outstretched, his eyes screwed shut as he found himself losing his balance, plunging into the current headfirst.  He was under for only a few seconds before he burst out again, standing waist-deep in the filthy mixture of muck from a storm days ago and the general detritus of the slums, his clothing soaked and covered in particulate as he brought his dagger to his vision, the blade glinting in the sunlight.

“We never knew such overwhelming memories could exist!  That a single person could hold so much hardship in one form, who isn’t even an immortal creature!  How we wish we could see what is in those memories, to glimpse into the warped world that he saw!”  His grin faded somewhat, a satisfied expression he often made after his hunts as he twisted his knife towards himself, before he drove it into his stomach, twisting it as it sank into his abdomen.  With a cough, a viscous black miasma tinged in red began to flow between his lower teeth, dripping in thick blobs into the water as the bags under his eyes darkened in the shadow of his lowered head.  “This is too much all at once for us to digest...Have some of them back, we will return for the rest later…”

His laugh was more subdued now as he tore the blade from his belly, already starting to heal as it ejected the rancid water from the wound, and he slowly blinked, his legs buckling under his weight as he collapsed with a splash into the murk.

The sound of salt crunching echoed in the endless sky as Ford fell to his knees, his hand on his stomach as he tiredly stared out at the vast expanse he found himself within.  There was no detail here, no indication where he was, and there was no horizon, an infinite sea that stretched beyond his vision as his breath was punctuated with a hacking deep in his chest, though now, no blood escaped his body to tarnish the purity of the plane he found himself in.

His eyes trailed from side to side, his vision masked with a disorienting blur as he attempted to focus on anything of note, but with nothing present but himself, he found himself peering downward, his red eyes going still as a fuzzy image took form.

An old man dressed in dented old platemail armor materialized, mirroring Ford’s kneeling position under the surface, his wiry salt-and-pepper hair framing an inhuman grin as he stared up at the boy.  “You’ve been taken in by the same fear you once commanded, boy.  What a waste, the weak should stay down while the strong change the world.”

Ford didn’t recognize him, but one look told him that this was a veteran, someone who had seen the world come crumbling around him, and he could do nothing but stare silently as the man continued.  “What is left of a monster when he pretends to walk alongside humanity?  He loses his purpose and becomes nothing more than a wandering spirit.”

The boy jumped to his feet, instinctively turning his gaze away from the man in his reflection, but in his place was someone else, a shambling skeleton of a man with a face stretched tightly against his cheekbones, his sad expression clashing with the jester’s outfit clinging to his gastly thin body.  “Neeh...I’d shout at you, but there’s nooo meaning in it.  Yooou have already dooone enough…”  His voice was as slow as his expression, but as Ford tried to turn away again, he found himself still staring at the man, his vision blurring from the movement as his hands moved to his head.

“Who are you…?” the boy asked, his voice catching in his throat and leaving him only to squeak the question out, but the apparition didn’t answer, his depressed stare the only response he received as Ford trembled where he stood.

“Afraid.” came a female voice, cutting through his thoughts with a booming echo as the jester faded into nothingness, but it wasn’t more than a moment before another form appeared in his place.

A silver-haired elf standing next to a short child, both dressed in noble clothing as they looked on at Ford’s shivering form.  The child moved to hold the elder’s hand, but was slapped away as the elf stepped forward, her teeth gritted as her red eyes narrowed. “You bastard!  Look around, this is what your mad quest brought you!  You’ve lost your humanity, even your own daughters can’t stand the sight of you!”

“Stop…” Ford croaked, stepping back, his knees bent as the salt crunched under his weight, his teeth grinding together as he closed his eyes.  “Shut up…”

“Don’t you dare close your eyes!  You wanted to bring the world into ruin, so look at the emptiness you’ve created!  Look at the person you are!”

He screamed as the woman grabbed him, her fingers gouging at his eyes as she forced his eyelids open, and through the haze of his vision and the pain of the dust on Nyx’s hands in his eyes, he reached for the child as he doubled over in his struggle to escape the elf’s grasp.  “Ceres, please...Help me, help your father…”

The girl stood still, curling her long white hair in her fingers as her icy eyes betrayed no emotion, only a deadpan look on her smooth face as she spoke in a bone-chilling voice that halted the pain in his body, a short sentence that cast a dark shadow over the colorless world.  “Ask your Great Spirit for help.”

“Afraid.”

Ford’s eyes went wide, and he collapsed to the ground as the two vanished, and now, he didn’t even have the strength to cover his ears as the images began to flash more and more rapidly, person after person hurling insults at him as he slowly began to sink into the salt flat, his body weighed down by their words.

“Afraid.”

“Be quiet…” he whispered, his hand balling into a fist on the hard ground.  “I know I’m scared.  I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know who these people are but I know their names.  Are these all...my memories of people I’ve hurt?  What sort of terrible things did I do…?”

“Afraid afraid afraid afraidafraidafraid…”

The chanting had become incessant, and he growled, slamming his fist hard into the ground, but he felt no resistance, and he found himself standing, his foot planted forward to keep his balance as he swung.

There was no one in front of him when he looked, but the right hook connected with something solid, and the reflection cracked as a girl appeared, cloaked in a dark miasma.  A choked cry came from her throat as she was slammed into the salt, and the shadowy aura was swiped away by his fist.  She raised her hand defensively, her stare cutting through him like he wasn’t there.

“Afraid…” she said, her tone flat and featureless despite her expression, and Ford blinked, lowering his hand and standing still, uncertain whether to turn and run or to help her back up.

“You...are you a real person?  Are you just another of these memories?” he asked tentatively, and she shook her head rapidly, her hand lowering to push herself to stand again, before rubbing her cheek where he’d struck.

“You’re not him…” she said, disappointment in her voice.  “Who are you?”

He blinked, shaking his head.  “I’m...I don’t really know.  Someone told me my name was Subaru, is that it?”

She shouted, a deafening screech that echoed violently against the smooth terrain, and he was pushed back as he found her hands on him, slender fingers digging into his shoulders.  He found her purple eyes inches from his own, a sharp glare not present before at the mention of the name, and when she spoke, her voice was in a hoarse shout, tears flying out of the corners of her eyes as she shook him.  “You’re not Subaru!  You shouldn’t have been the one to find me!  Who are you?  Why do you speak his name?!”

Not Subaru...then Elsa was wrong?  Those memories he’d seen were incomplete, huge chunks missing that left everything disjointed and cluttered with no rhyme or reason.  He couldn’t possibly know who he-

“Leo Borealis…” he said, startled at how easily the name had come, but as the words left his lips, he recognized it.  Yes, that was his name.  It felt like he was betraying Felt’s new name for him, but if that was his real identity…

The half-elf gnashed her teeth together, jumping back and spinning on her toes as she bit her thumbnail, her eyes wildly flicking in all directions as the white cloak she wore fluttered in the illusion of a breeze.  “The stars...I haven’t seen the stars in so long…”  Her gaze turned to Ford, her hand lowering to her chest as she nodded.  “Subaru promised to show me the stars again!  He would come back, he would free me!  But it was only you, a scared stranger slinging his fists at ghosts!  A cornered rat has the sharpest fangs!”  She screamed again, her hands clutching her face to cover her eyes as she arched her back.  “Afraid.  Afraid. Afraidafraid-”

“What are you talking about?!  Who are you?  Who am I?  Why did you show me all those things?”  Ford clenched his fist, raising it in front of him and standing like he was ready to strike, but the shaking of his knees and the trembling of his lips showed how far his willpower went.  “I wanted to know who I was, but I didn’t think I had done such horrible things!  Are you telling me I’m a devil like that Nyx?!”

The woman froze at his words, her head turning to lock eye contact with him, and she slowly stood back up, her hands lowering to her sides.  “Devil...”

He blinked, taken aback by the calm way she spoke, and all of a sudden, it was like the shadow had lifted, a sourceless light washing her silver hair and pale skin in a faint glow as she stepped towards him, her head tilting to the side as she once again set her hand on his shoulder.  This time, he didn’t feel nervous, and the stare she gave was not angry but curious as her mouth opened and closed before she regained her speech.

“I don’t want to see you again.  Go away, let me wait for him to arrive.  Subaru will keep his promise.  You are unable to help or hurt me.  Go back, and leave me be.”

Ford was about to respond when he stepped back, his eyes rolling as an intense dizziness sent him teetering backwards until he lost his balance and fell through the ground without effort as the half-elf faded away into the distance.

“Isn’t that right, Ford?” Felt asked, and he jolted from the feeling of falling, his eyes opening as he felt a hardness on his back as he leaned in the uncomfortable wooden chair in the Loothouse.  He looked around, disoriented at the change in his scenery, before Felt groaned, leaning over the table to flick him in the forehead.  “Don’t go to sleep, dummy!  I know you’re bored and don’t care what’s going on, but this is about you!”

“...What?” he asked, unable to formulate any further thoughts.  As his mind returned to reality, he only became more confused.  Had he just imagined all that?  The girl was alive and well, and Rom stood nearby, on guard with his hand on his club as he had been earlier.  When Ford turned his head, he found Elsa staring at him, an amused look on her face.

“Your business partner is as ill-mannered as you are, I see.” the woman said, her eyes narrowing as her tongue ran along her upper lip.  “Someone who can afford to sleep around a scary stranger can be one of only two things, a fool or a veteran.  Whether he is Subaru or not, he must be the most dangerous man in this room.”

The statement triggered the boy’s memory, and he moved his hand to cover the shocked expression on his face, passing it off as a tired yawn to avoid the mercenary becoming more suspicious.  This was real, wasn’t it?  As he thought, the memory of what had happened came back to him, and he felt cold drops of sweat beading on his skin as he remembered how she had attacked before.

He hadn’t dreamt anything.  Somehow, he had been sent back before it all went wrong.