The sun had vanished.

No, that was inaccurate. 

 

The celestial body hadn't truly vanished but rather, it had transformed into a dark dot in the sky. There was a dome of stars covering all the light from the entire area of the barrier. A veil in the sky called night.

 

Soon enough, the stars moved, the clouds formed the shapes of a face with features too indistinct to tell. One could pinpoint its likeness to a man, a human, but other than that, there were no other details other than it had been made out of a natural occurrence.

 

Then, it opened its mouth.

"Greetings, all those who live on the earth. I am a messenger appointed by the higher-ups to inform you of your fate.

 

"Should there be any of you who survived the purging thus far, then please, allow me to congratulate you, for your misery is yet to be over."

The voice didn't come from just the sky. It reverberated through the ground, thrummed in the water and was carried by the wind—it existed everywhere, anywhere; all at the same time.

 

This, she thought, was the voice that could personify fear itself.

"Apocalypse, the end of the world, judgment—all of these are apt to describe the predicament you find yourselves in now. You have wasted your chance, and now, you have been given another. To prove your worth. To show that you matter. To grasp the path where you may prove this test to be wrong and thrive."

 

"To those Named Children, with the appearance of this message, I announce that the grace period given to you is finally over. The remaining touchstones will be available to the public as of the end of this message.

 

"To the mortals, who find themselves without hope, worry not, as mercy has opened her arms to embrace all of you. Sanctuaries have formed in locations I will inform you of within the limits of your understanding. Those who wish to not take their place in the war, those who wish to find solace and peace, however momentarily, may make their pilgrimage the moment this message ends."

 

Then, the sky trembled, and a map of the country was projected onto the dark canvas of the night. It was drawn by the stars and lined by the trail of comets. It glowed so brightly in some areas that the rays of light they emitted had morphed into a circular shape and had spread evenly in distance to cover small, sectioned areas.

 

Ten stars in total; ten sanctuaries.

 

"Should you wish to escape, you will have until the death of this month to make your way to these locations. The beasts will not chase you. The Named Children will not chase you. 

 

"Both will be forbidden to leave their self-designated areas until this agreement period is upheld to a close."

One kilometer was quite a big range, but it was nowhere near enough to see the end of the horizon from the edge of the beach. Despite this, the fact that there was no light streaming out of the barrier's edges or coming in suggested that this night had not only covered their barrier like a parasol, but had also blocked the entire side of the planet that faced the sun from view.

 

Cold. Cold started to seep in on the moving wind. The moon shone brightly during the day. It was as if the entire planet had been confounded and turned on its head, its polar nodes shifted to the sides.

 

But what would those sides mean for an endless, three-dimensional space?

"This pilgrimage will be the last chance for you to flee. The final rule imposed on the other players in this war, who will not stop fighting until the crowned king emerges from the hill of ash and blood of their fallen kin."

They watched, enraptured and forced by an invisible allure that kept their attention glued to and listened closely to that voice from the sky. To pay attention to the herald of danger.

"And to the rest of you, to those wishing to forge their own path, you shall also be given another chance." The face paused, almost hesitant, in the way the brows were drawn just ever so slightly together. "For those of you who have been restrained with the chains called mortality, from now, that chain will be severed. No more will the earth bind you."

 

Her heart thudded.

 

"No longer will the sky be your limit."

 

She felt her blood rush forth, flowing so hard that her entire body trembled and emitted heat simply from trying to keep itself together.

 

"No longer shall the shackles that time put upon you pin your soul and steal away the weight of your future."

 

The ringing. The ringing in her ears was so loud. She could almost hear the sea. Her tongue tasted space.

 

"The moment the pilgrimage is completed, you will no longer stand with your fellow man as equal."

 

"No longer will the dice of fate dictate your lives."

 

Then, as if running out of time itself, the face gave one last bid of–

 

"Goodbye. And good luck."

When the sky filled with light again, when the sun returned to that blue backdrop, when the night had receded its place to the proper time--

She leaped off with her weapon brandished at Purnama.

There was always a part of her that nagged her from the back of her mind. Why was he so eye-catching amongst the others? Why was it so easy to track his eyes, should they land on her? Why did his aura feel so different? Why why why why?

Now. It all clicked.

Once you got a hold on power, sensing the difference between one who held supernatural power and one who didn't came easily. She had demonstrated this herself, at that first night meeting, as she condensed her own gathered power into the tips of her fingers.

 

That voice had told everyone that; those with potential, those who were fit to wield power on their own, would be broken free from their shackles only once the pilgrimage was over.

So, unless Purnama was carrying around a cursed item like Sariya, he should just be a normal man.

The thing about having a sword thrust into your face when you least expected it was that you were only given two options. To stand there and take it, thus ending your miserable existence, or to flee; because you truly value your life more than anything else.

 

He could have stood in his place and if his cause was so important to him, he would take the blade to prove a point. To show the rest of the crowd the true face of the tyrant they had been fighting to vanquish for the betterment of the many. 

He could have stayed and the blade would not have dug any more than an inch into his skull. Sure, scarring would have inevitably happened, but it would not have taken his life. And he would have won. His message would have been sent.

Purnama could have stayed still.

He would have stayed still, if he was a mortal like they assumed him to be.

But he did not.

Teleporting away in the blink of an eye, Purnama dodged her blades, appearing tens of meters away from where he originally stood. Tira chased him relentlessly, sending her chains forward; first with power enough to shatter the air pressure, forcing him to keep moving in the radius of her peripheral vision. Her chase was soon followed by the assistance of a thorned whip on the tails of his blurring figure.

 

What she couldn't see was covered with sensing his power; bright, unpolished, a beacon that gave away the blip of his existence the moment he made his comeback from the in-betweens.

 

Grinning madly, she saw him pulling something out of his pocket and finally, showed the barest glimpse of what his personality was truly like and laughed in glee. Mocking, victorious, taunting.

 

Hateful. Hateful, sadistic eyes were directed at her, eyes that screamed of unfairness from being stopped playing when things were just about to get fun.

"See you later, fuckers!"

Blasting whatever item he previously had pulled out of his pocket, a thick, ominous cloud of smoke blooms around his figure. Tira ducked down as the whip swiped from behind her, cutting into the yellow sulphuric cloud, bisecting the fog into two.

The whip only caught the air. She could no longer sense his presence.

Purnama had dissipated along with the temporary night, and with that unveiling, he left behind chaos.

---

"FUCK!"

 

Armand hit the punching bag as he cursed. One punch was hard enough to send the bag flying back far enough, before he punched it again, harder. "FUCK! FUCK!! MOTHERFUCKER!!!"

 

Donny, with his hands folded, had grimly rested his chin over the table as he slumped over in his seat. Rina was sitting by the bench press seat as she looked on with concern at both her yearmates.

 

Meanwhile, Henry, Gunawan, and Lydia were sprawled on the floor, looking exhausted beyond belief, though none of them had said anything about the excessive swearing yet.

The voice of a girl cut through the tension.

"I’m sorry."

Donny glanced up at her, though his eyes were dark without any light in them. "What for?"

 

"For not sharing important information." She said, knowing full well what she was in the wrong for. "For assuming things."

 

Armand stopped his punching. His glare was now directed at her. "You knew?"

 

"You knew all this time that he was someone else’s lackey. You knew-!" He strode forward to where she stood, grabbing her collar by the neck. "And you didn’t bother to tell us about it?!"

"I had assumed that we were on the same page, that you knew as well." She breathed in. Pain. Hurt. Burning, pain, smoke aching in her lungs she was in the wrong pain pain blooming flower– "I taught you how to sense energy. I had assumed that you felt it too, that you had understood what I meant when I said he felt strange. I’m sorry."

 

He growled back at her, "Oh, so now you’re calling us incompetents, is that it?!"

"That's the truth."

Donny’s voice rang in the room, sharper than a blade, his eyes colder than ice-forged steel. "It was the truth, Armand."

 

"And how is that supposed to help, hm?!" He chucked her aside and banged his hands on the desk so suddenly that it groaned under impact, "What good does it do to acknowledge this now that we've had our asses kicked and the sick fuck who did this hasn't even been captured. WHAT GOOD IS THERE?!!!"

 

Donny did not reply to his screaming friend. His jaw was tight, his lips drawn to a thin line but he did not look away from the gangster boy.

 

"We can learn, Arl."

 

Rina whispered softly, her hoarse voice countering the hardness and the heat of his anger, with the gentleness of a flowing stream to soothe the temper. "We can learn. We can be better. His mistake was leaving us alive because as long as we're here, there will be another chance."

 

"Even if we hadn't gotten to him first, someone else will," Lydia commented coldly as she stood up and approached the cycling machine. "the only thing we need to prepare is to last long enough and be strong enough to face him if he and his patron make it to the last battle of the war."

 

Henry nodded, taking the weight that happened to be by his side in hand as he clenched his fingers around the cold steel. "He fooled us long enough. We need to be smarter."

 

"We can." Donny said.

 

Gunawan goes off to take the other weights, bumping his fist into Henry’s arms, "We will."

 

Armand sighed, scratching his head in annoyance before he exited the university's gym room and slammed the door on his way out. Rina followed his exiting figure with sad eyes, then glanced at her, "He needs some time. This is the first time in a long while that he's lost this badly to someone."

 

She nodded, understanding that his anger hadn't been directed at her to begin with. She was familiar with that kind of helpless frustration. That feeling of madness and mania and the drowning disappointment that followed soon after took all the space that her lungs could have filled with air and stuffed it with regret instead.

 

"Tira," Donny called her next, expression unreadable. "Can you please forgive us for not trusting you?"

 

Ah, was this about them keeping the plan hidden from her?

 

"You had no reason to." She pointed out, without any judgment or hate, just the truth. "As far as you know, I have sided with a mysterious entity with whom you also cannot count on the credibility of his words and promises. Until he acted on it, there was no reason for you to not think of me as standing on the other side."

 

"But you trusted us." Donny stated. Not asked.

 

"I did." She admitted it rather easily. "I am a walking bait, a shortcut to conquering another valuable resource, just another variable in the equation with a huge reward to those who slay me. If there was anyone whose life would be vanishing first in this war, it would be mine."

 

"You have no reason to trust us."

 

She shook her head. "I know you enough to possess the self-awareness that, if I were to be stabbed in the middle of the night, it would be from my insufficient understanding of you and of that alone."

 

"Naive!" Lydia stopped her paddling, her face annoyed and her voice affronted.

 

"I’d rather trust and be betrayed than the alternative." She shrugged away the berating easily, falling off to the side like water on a lilypad. "You can kill me now if you want. Snap my neck, break the bond of your contract, and go find your refuge with the neutral sanctuary; I won't stop you."

 

Henry grimaced. Gunawan said nothing.

 

Donny stood up from the desk, took a step forward, and wrapped his hands around her neck.

 

Henry panicked. "WH-"

 

The hand pressed on her windpipes, tight, not enough to suffocate. Nobody stopped him. Not in time.

 

Pressure tightened. Her airway was now fully blocked. She kept her eyes on those cold, uncaring eyes looking down on her.

 

More pressure. Her neck spine was popping bubbles between its joints. Compressing as the delicate pipe slowly groaned under pressure. She need not breathe but instinctively, she knew that with how drained of power she was now, there wouldn't be enough energy for her body to automatically fix a crushed neck.

Just a little more, and her fate would be broken.

Just a bit more, she would greet true death.

The hands released their pressure, though not their grip, and their owner asked without any hint of emotion. "And how would you know that this isn’t just a ploy to gain your trust now, only to betray you later?"

Smiling, she moved back from those loosened fingers, giving a respectful bow to her seniors and allies. "Then I walk away now, with the knowledge of who among you all would, could, and should put a dagger in my heart."

Exiting the room, Tira closed the door carefully, the click of the hinges giving it all to do its job despite the wood almost bursting off from its frames.

Just like her. Just like him.

Apples don’t fall far from trees, especially the rotten ones.

---

Running water under the tap cooled the back of her hands, trickling down her face and back down again into the sink. Dripping one by one, a drop at a time, filling the muted environment of the white-tiled bathroom with a sickening rhythm of silence that bridged the gap between the water molecules.

 

She raised her eyes to the mirror. As expected, the bruise did not heal. She was so hungry, so tired, so sleepy—

 

"Dias."

 

The demi-god stood by the door, his face impassive, betraying nothing of his thoughts or emotions. His gaze was fixed on her, on her neck, on the blooming dark patch that blossomed on her skin. She let loose a smile at him, though her croaking voice didn't paint a pretty picture when paired with her abused, damaged parlor. "Don’t just stand there, come in."

 

Despite the chances for him to say no, to joke that this was a women’s toilet and by all means that he shouldn't even be here, Dias said nothing. The soles of his shoes rapped against the dry, crisp tiles, click clack click clack...

 

He said nothing until he arrived right by her. Pain, pain in her chest. Pain and punishment for her betrayal. Pain in his eyes as if he was experiencing the same. There was no breath exhaled as his eyes traced the shape of the palm that had imprinted upon her skin.

"May I touch your wound?"

It was the first time he had ever asked. It was the first time she sensed hesitation in his voice. For the first time in a long while of short days and stretched space, she saw him holding back and waiting for an answer.

It was the second time, however, for she felt anger coursing through the bond.

She nodded.

Gingerly, with tender, careful movement, he traced his gloved knuckles over her. Power flooded into her system, healing, granting rest to her overworked nerves and swollen vocal chords. The fingers traced back to her nape, brushing over places of injury where the mirror did not reflect.

 

"I don’t know how you did it." He said. No anger in his voice, no worry, no care or compassion or fussing– nothing. "I felt no danger. Nothing. You were so close to being dead and yet you felt no danger whatsoever."

 

Tira whispered back with a smile.

 

"I’m not going to tell you about it."

"Why?" He asked, moving his fingers to the other side of her neck, the flow of his healing mercy following suit. "Why must you torture me with the curse of ignorance? Have I done something that has displeased you?"

"Nothing of the sort. I just had to find out for myself." 

 

She didn't lie to him, not that she couldn’t try if she wanted to, but her life and her lie – they were no longer of her own.

 

She wondered where she started and where he ended. That was her question. Repeating it again, softer, in a whisper; the wall echoed the cold, apathetic truth.

"I had to know."

Dias took away his finger. The aches, the pull of her skin, and the discomfort that still pressed behind her nape vanished along with the warmth that radiated through his covered hand. A faint scent of wood and mint filled the space between them, occupying the air with something other than oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon particles.

 

With that silk-covered skin, he peeled off a layer from her, a mask among other masks. She let him see a bit deeper into what company he had gained and wished he would run away.

"And now you know?"

Softly, gentle– tone measured and even without a single tremble to his syllables, he asked. He asked and she answered.

"And now I know."