“I’ve had no c-contact with your brother,” the feathered demon stammered from the ground. “I-I don’t know what lies Corporal Belgaldi has told you, General, but he’s had it out for me ever since I pledged my services—”
“He is here,” the General insisted, his remaining eye flashing. “This area’s animus confirms it!”
With a firm grip still on Galenus’s goat horn, he gestured with his free hand. The owl-peacock demon rose from the ground, suspended by an extension of the General’s crimson aura.
The cloud that was Oliver constricted as he hissed, “Impossible..!”
Writhing in mid-air, the demon squealed. “General, I swear to you! I...”
The aura around the trio intensified as Ragnerus studied his subordinate. “You speak your truth,” the General admitted begrudgingly. “Return, for your presence now is only a hindrance.”
The peacock-owl screamed and split at the seams, feathers sparking as his core burst into flames.
Marquis Galenus babbled something incoherent, and the General shook him violently until he fell limp. “Silence, fool. Do not distract me!” Ragnerus then stood perfectly still, his aura pulsating outward.
He’s trying to pinpoint our location!
Oliver solidified into a crouching position, his curved fingers holding a black ball of swirling mist. “I don’t understand. The seals remain unbroken… yet…”
“Just admit you screwed up,” Nora snapped in a whisper. “And get rid of whatever that thing is!”
100% Agree!
“It’s not that simple,” Oliver muttered, struggling to encase the mist within a purple barrier.
Relias glared at Oliver for a moment, then took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “The General is our enemy and focus…” he muttered, turning to watch Ragnerus’s intensifying meditation. “We must strike first. If he escapes, he will bring his entire army to bear down upon us.”
“The connection’s stronger than I anticipated…” Oliver sighed before glancing at me. “I think… I may have overestimated my abilities.”
You think?!
With a dejected but determined nod, I reached for my sword.
If I catch General Ragnerus off guard, I might get to strike first.
“Wait,” Oliver hissed, turning toward me as he held out the ball of mist. “Within failure is opportunity.”
I frowned. “Should I stab that thing instead?”
He made a wry, oddly apologetic face. “Only if it comes to that. Try holding it in your hands first. Do whatever you need to do, but do not let it go.”
I reached out and grabbed the mist with both hands, surprised to find it was more solid than I had expected. It was oddly squishy, and it held a faintly unsettling warmth.
“It’s alive!” Nora gasped as it wriggled, tendrils of mist swarming around its orb-like perimeter, revealing a large, angry crimson eye at its core.
“What the absolute fuck?!” I shrieked as its dilated pupil bounced around a few times before fixing on me.
“You!” the General roared as he turned, zeroing in on our hiding spot. He charged, his sword dancing with shadowy flames as he drew it from his sheath. Galenus awkwardly accompanied him, his body dragging across the ground behind him.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Pour your will into it!” Oliver shouted as Relias and Nora prepared for impact.
The eye widened in panic as I engulfed it within my golden aura. General Ragnerus’s charge faltered in response. He stumbled, then screamed, dropping Galenus as he clutched at the hole where his eye once resided.
Galenus took the opportunity to slam his hand onto his gauntlet, igniting its crystal with a burst of light. But before he could summon a portal, however, Oliver was upon him.
The eye suddenly twisted violently in my grip, and I nearly lost hold of it. Planting my feet, I forced it still and held firm. By the time I looked up again, Oliver had pinned the monocled demon, his fingers sinking into Galenus’s now-translucent forehead.
General Ragnerus was still screaming, too loud for me to make out what Oliver was demanding of Galenus. The demon quivered and whispered something back. For a moment, I thought Oliver might release him.
Instead, he withdrew his shadowy fingers, pulling out a shimmering core with them. The body of Galenus flickered and vanished, leaving only the gauntlet behind.
“No!” roared the General, struggling to rise.
Oliver picked up the gauntlet and signaled with a downward motion. I dimmed my aura slightly in response.
“It’s been a long time, brother,” Oliver called, his tone sharpened to a grating haughtiness. “Almost seven years, I believe. You must’ve heard rumors about my demise. But tell me—what were the other lies that convinced you it was wise to face me alone?”
“My… eye! Give me back my eye!” the General bellowed.
Oliver raised a brow. “I had been planning to,” he admitted. “But now I’m not so sure that’s the wisest course of action. I’m beginning to think I can’t trust you with it.”
“A deal!” Ragnerus shouted, his face twisting in pain. “I will make a deal with you!”
Oliver burst out laughing with an explosive, incredulous bark that echoed through the clearing.
“A deal?” he replied, wiping a nonexistent tear from his eye. “Now you want to make a deal? After what you did to me? Never mind the grief you gave my partner recently.”
“I… know Aziza’s plans… I can—”
“Did you not hear me before?” Oliver asked flatly. “I said I don’t trust you. If you want your eye back, you’ll have to rekindle that trust.”
Black tears began to weep from the eye I was still clutching, and unease curled sourly in my stomach.
I’m a torturer…
“Don’t fall for crocodile tears,” Nora warned. “He’ll kill us all the moment you let up.”
“Lady Nora speaks the truth,” Relias affirmed. “That accursed eye is the only leverage we have.”
“My army! At your beck and call!” Ragnerus cried.
Oliver tilted his head. “Tempting… But unfortunately, I’m a bit too busy now to manage an army.”
“Then just tell me what you wish of me!” the General barked.
Oliver’s eyes gleamed. “I wish you had listened to me about Father. I wish you’d warned our golden child of a sister that the moment she fulfilled her Purpose, she’d be reabsorbed as a reward. I wish you had even a shred of sense! Then maybe you’d have realized from the beginning that we were created only to serve and suffer for the crimes of our Father.”
He closed his eyes with a slow breath. “But wishes,” he said with a humorless smile, “are ultimately meaningless.”
Oh, Oliver…
Oliver sighed and folded his arms. “Instead, I’ll merely instruct you as one does a rebellious child. You will do whatever is necessary to keep Zizi from interfering with us. Use your head this time, and not just your sword arm. Lock her into a stalemate between yourself and the Order of White for no less than three months.”
“I will… need that gauntlet…”
“This thing?” Oliver lifted it. “Whatever for? It’s useless now.”
“You didn’t… break the bond?”
“Zizi’s contracts are overly complicated,” Oliver muttered with a shrug. “But keeping her—and you—from instant translocation? That’s still useful to me.”
He tossed the gauntlet slightly in his hand. “Now go. I’ll review your performance later. If you succeed in regaining a bit of my trust, I might even give back this eye.”
“I can’t translocate without its power!” Ragnerus protested.
Oliver’s expression darkened. “You can’t go a single minute without lying, can you? There’s exactly one way left for you to translocate—and I suggest you use it before the Captain insists on helping you home.”
With mixed feelings, I squeezed the eye for emphasis.
General Ragnerus collapsed to his knees with a scream, causing everyone but Oliver to flinch. With a final roar of indignation, he gripped his sword with both hands and plunged it into the space between his chest and stomach. Ruptures split across his skin as his core ignited in protest. He stiffened, then fell as both he and his core melted away, completing his self-banishment.
The eye in my grip began to dim, its pupil constricting to a pinpoint as it rolled up and back into the dark mist surrounding it.
“Wh…what now?” I stammered after a long silence. “I can’t just keep holding this thing…”
Nora glanced at me. “What about, um… You know.”
I shivered. “Oh. Uh… I think it’s in my right cloak pocket.”
Maybe if we play it cool, I won’t have to explain it to him.
Nora rifled through my cloak several times. “It’s not in any of them!”
Oliver held out his hand, the magical containment pouch made from the scraps of my hachimaki floating just above his fingers. “Are you perhaps… Looking for this?”
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