her pink eyes are anchors. They are heavy, glowing hooks sinking into the softest, most vulnerable tissues of my mind, actively pulling my consciousness apart like wet paper. The physical world around me the smell of burning timber, the canyon wind, the crushing, claustrophobic weight of the seamless metal bindings pinning me to the cold stone slab begins to fade. She is trying to overwrite my reality with her own.
But she made a critical miscalculation.
The physical agony the fresh, traumatic memory of Teleb driving slivers of jagged steel directly into my corneas, and the excruciating, endless loop of the Regenerator knitting my flesh over razor blades has perversely grounded me. The sheer, overwhelming volume of my physical suffering acts as a buffer against her mental invasion. The screaming voices of the Fearmonger that have been an uncontrollable, chaotic hurricane in my skull, have been temporarily exhausted, dialed back to a low, feral growl by the sheer trauma of my own rapid destruction and reconstruction.
I am pinned. I am bleeding. I am surrounded by Elites who want to do who knows what with me. But for the first time since I was brought back to life, I have a sliver of clarity. I have a desperate, fleeting semblance of control over the bloodlust that has been driving me like a rabid dog.
I squeeze my newly healed eyes shut against the devastatingly bright, hypnotic pink of her gaze. I visualize it. I drag the concept of absolute, zero-degree cold into the forefront of my mind. I envision a massive, creeping glacier expanding rapidly over the boiling, churning oceans of my bloodlust, locking the chaotic waves of my anger beneath feet of impenetrable, diamond-hard ice.
The physical world vanishes instantly. The cold stone slab, the metal, the burning city of Baelin all of it blinks out of existence.
I am plunged into the breathtaking, terrifying vastness of my own Soul Sea.
It is a cosmic void of infinite black, a private universe painted with the brilliant, sweeping strokes of my own existence. There is no up or down here, no gravity to bind me. Planets of varying sizes and vivid colors orbit slowly in the dark, each one a massive, humming sphere of my core memories and foundational truths.
But the pristine, terrifying beauty of my inner universe is tainted.
Drifting gracefully through the open space, weaving between the gravitational pulls of my emotions and memories, are petals. Pink roses. They glow with that same hypnotic, unnatural luminescence of the girl's eyes. They are invasive spores, multiplying and drifting steadily toward the core of who I am, seeking to take root and blossom into control.
I sneer.
I take a deep, stabilizing breath. The air here does not exist, yet it tastes like starlight and static ozone.
Fear is the mind killer, I remind myself, the mantra echoing across the vacuum of my own soul like a tolling bell. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.
I launch myself forward, soaring weightless through the ether of my own psyche. I follow the glowing trail of pink petals. They lead me deep into the most volatile, dangerous sector of my Soul Sea. They lead me toward a massive, violently exploding nebula tinged in dark, bruised red and bruised purple the one memories that first made me what I am. the first manifestation of rage, the first manifestation of my bloodlust and trauma.
There she is.
The white-haired girl is floating near the turbulent edge of the crimson nebula, surrounded by a swirling, protective storm of her pink roses. But her demeanor has completely changed from the physical world. She is not the smug, arrogant Petal sitting atop my bound body, probing my mind with clinical detachment.
Here, where truths cannot be hidden by obsidian masks or false bravado, tears are streaming down her porcelain cheeks. They detach from her face and float away like tiny, crystalline diamonds in the zero-gravity environment.
"You truly are such a tragic character," she whispers. Her voice echoes across the stars, heavy with a profound, weeping sorrow that instantly sickens me.
I sneer, my violet eyes burning with astral fire. "Get the fuck out of my head," I demand, my voice carrying the weight of a collapsing star.
She just smiles through her tears, a sad, trembling thing. "We need not be enemies, Ayato."
I blink in sheer, unadulterated disbelief at the sheer audacity of the statement. "We need not be enemies?" I repeat. "You are terrorists. You are rabid dogs. You kill indiscriminately. I saw Nimorael. I saw the river of blood. I saw the bodies stacked like cordwood. Now you attempt to make me a slave. You are no saint so do not lie to me"
She tilts her head, her intricate white bun coming loose, strands of hair floating around her face like a halo. "Is that what they told you?" she asks softly, her pink eyes searching mine. "You should know better. You, of all people, should see through the Empire's lies."
I sneer again, crossing my arms over my chest. A tiny, insidious fragment of my analytical mind, who understands the deep, murky grey areas of geopolitical war wonders if she has a point. The Federation, the Empire, Midnight Rose... they are all turning this continent into a massive abattoir.
But I do not care what she has to say. Not here. Not while she is trespassing in the sacred, private architecture of my mind.
"Get out," I demand again, the space around me vibrating with lethal, kinetic intent.
She shakes her head, her pink eyes hardening with a sudden, fanatical resolve that burns away her tears. "If you won't surrender willingly, then I will force you. I am sorry, Ayato. But you will thank me one day."
I have heard enough of her self-righteous delusions. I have heard enough of her justifications. But as she was talking, monologuing about forcing my surrender and saving my soul, she failed to notice the shift in the cosmic weather behind her. She failed to realize that in this space, I am the undisputed god, and my demons are very, very real.
The red nebula behind her begins to churn. The clouds of violent cosmic gas coalesce, condensing and solidifying into a shape so massive it dwarfs the planets in my sky. What was once just a normal memory has changed. I realized that I could bring forth my protector. So the nebula has collapsed and in its place.
It is the constellation of the Wolf.
Its fur is made of dark matter, pulling the light from the surrounding stars. Its teeth are jagged, continent-sized asteroids. And its eyes its eyes are two massive, burning, hyper-giant planets that flare with the unrestrained, psychotic fury of the Fearmonger.
The white-haired girl senses the sudden shift in gravity. Her pink eyes snap wide open in absolute, paralyzing shock as the shadow of the celestial beast falls over her.
She turns, raising her hands to conjure a shield of roses, but it is far too late.
The massive maw of planets and fire hinges open, and violently, definitively, closes down upon her fragile avatar.
The psychic feedback is instantaneous and catastrophic. The Soul Sea shatters like a mirror struck by a heavy iron hammer.
The physical world snaps back into existence with a jarring, concussive boom. I am back on the ruined stone slab, the wind biting my skin, the smell of ash and blood filling my lungs.
But the girl straddling my waist is no longer smiling. She is no longer trying to rewrite my emotions.
She is screaming.
It is a horrifying, high-pitched shriek of absolute, mind-shredding agony. The psychic bite of the Wolf in my Soul Sea has translated directly into the physical realm. She is quite literally on fire. dark red flames lick up her pristine white tunic, burning and consuming her.
She flings herself off me in a blind, thrashing panic, launching backward in a frantic scramble to escape the searing pain consuming her. She crashes violently into Teleb, knocking the massive, metal-shaping Elite backward with a startled, heavy curse.
The split second of confusion, the sheer, unprecedented panic rippling through the Midnight Rose Elites as they watch their telepath burn to death is all the opening I need.
The voices in my head roar back to life, fed by the sweet, intoxicating taste of the invader's burning mind. I do not fight them this time. I need them for this next part so I welcome them in all of their unholy glory. I engage my Marks. I push the Fearmonger to its absolute breaking point, flooding my restrained limbs with a tidal wave of raw physical augmentation. The Regenerator hums to life, reinforcing my muscle fibers and bone density so they do not snap under the impossible strain of my own exertion.
I flex every muscle in my body simultaneously.
The seamless metal encasing my wrists, ankles, and waist groans under the impossible kinetic output. Hairline fractures appear in the steel. Then, with a sound like a mortar shell detonating, the bindings violently shatter.
Shrapnel explodes outward in every direction.
I launch myself backward, clearing the slab in a single, explosive bound. My boots skid across the ruined stone of the crater, kicking up a rooster tail of dust.
A split second later, the air where my head just rested unfolds. The teleporter Petal materializes, her hands grasping empty air. She curses loudly, her pristine obsidian mask snapping toward me.
I land in a low crouch and throw my head back.
I laugh.
It is a booming, echoing, utterly insane sound that bounces off the shattered canyon walls and drowns out the roaring fires. The voices in my head are surging in absolute ecstasy, their symphony of madness perfectly aligned with my own towering ego, my survival, and my bloodlust.
I stand up slowly, rolling my shoulders. The golden light of the Regenerator still sparks faintly against my bruised skin, and from the reflection of their obsidian masks i can the violet flames in my eyes burn hotter than a dying star.
The voices speak to me, feeding me the words, and for the first time, I do not just listen. I let them speak through me. My next words are theirs, fused perfectly with my own unyielding arrogance and the lingering divine touch of whatever cosmic entity pulled me back from the void.
"Behold me now!" I roar.
My voice carries the weight of a physical blow, rolling over the burning ruins of Baelin, demanding the attention of the very heavens.
Teleb rights himself, pushing the screaming, burning telepath off him, his single blue eye widening in apprehension as he looks at the monster he has unleashed.
"I am Ayato Daath!" I declare, spreading my arms wide, embracing the madness, embracing the divinity of the slaughter. "I am the true heir of Elarion!"
The canyon wind howls around me, whipping the shredded rags of my clothing, carrying the stench of death and the electric tang of my power.
"I was anointed by the Absolute, in the light of Aren, and it is in their light that I stand before you now! Strike me down if you can!"
I step forward, daring them. Daring the Elites, daring the Midnight Rose, daring the entire fractured world to try and stop the cataclysm that I have become.
"And the Absolute himself will bring retribution! The Warrior's sword will be the judgment upon you!"
The pristine-masked teleporter hesitates, taking a half-step back, her posture radiating sudden uncertainty. Even Teleb stands frozen, the metal shards of his shattered shield trembling on the ground in response to the sheer, overwhelming aura radiating from my body.
"Yes," I whisper. The sound is quiet, but it carries perfectly to their ears, cutting through the crackle of the flames.
"Yes. You may well recoil."
I pick up a sword that rests at my feet and I pause for a second I recognize the sword to be one of Telebs living swords the steel singing a vicious, demented melody and I can feel it fear and hate.
"For now you see me as I truly am," I scream at them in defiance.
"Terrible in vengeance, just, and glorious!"