I glanced down at Van hanging from my belt.
His skull had started repairing itself slowly, bone smoothing, cracks sealing, teeth turning almost white again. For one horrible second I thought the rest of him might grow back: muscle, eyes, tongue.
My stomach flipped.
'No... don't. If you come back you'll just leave me too.'
But it stopped. Just the skull, clean and perfect, tied tight to the cloth strip so it couldn't fall.
Good.
I slid down the wall until I was sitting, knees to chest.
'It's... big here. That thing should've found me by now. I screamed so loud when I was revived... And convulsed... but it didn't come.'
Good.
'I don't want it to come.' I thought, curling tighter into myself. Holding Van close to my chestplate with both arms.
"I don't wanna die again," I whimpered, voice barely above a whimper so as to not alert the monster.
"I don't wanna die again... I don't wanna die—"
The memories slammed into me.
Teeth punching through my chest. Tongue licking piss and blood off my leggins. My heart sliding down its throat still beating.
I curled tighter, arms locked around the breastplate and Van's skull.
"Van... I love you. Stay with me. Don't leave me..."
My voice cracked into nothing.
"I... I wanna go ho... Go..."
Home.
I tried to say the word home, but it wouldn't come out.
Because the picture that came with it was Mom in that bunny suit, Kazuya behind her, laughing.
Home doesn't exist anymore.
'And even if it did... he'd just take it, wouldn't he, Van?' I asked, raising my head just a bit to look into his empty eyes. He didn't reply.
But I knew his answer. I knew THE answer.
He'd take mom, my home, the same way he took Rina.
The gods would hand him the key to Earth on a golden platter and tell him to keep the Hero powers as a bonus.
I pressed my forehead to Van's skull.
'.... Yeah. I know, Van.'
'But even if I do find a way out of here, then what?'
A pause.
'I'm an F-rank whose only worthwhile ability is to fucking die. What can I do against S rank Kazuya? What can I do versus MY OWN body? A body that, in 70 or so years, will just keep dying of natural causes until I... Lose my mind?'
'....'
'Yeah. You're right.' I felt strength returning to my legs, I started to slowly stand up.
'I should at the very least avoid dying HERE endlessly. I need to get out of here. I don't want to... Die to that thing again.' I shuddered at the thought.
'Let's move.' I thought as I picked up the glowing mushroom I'd dropped when I first died and started walking again.
-------- A FEW MINUTES LATER ------
I kept looking behind me as I walked the corridor. Behind me was that chamber where the monster killed me a second time. Also, the place where I first spawned.
Anywhere, ANYWHERE, that gets further away from that place, I figured, is a well-chosen direction.
And this time, I made sure to tiptoe. And not speak aloud. My own armor rang in my ears even during my smallest, most delibrate steps. Of course, that thing found me a second time; even standing still - this armor produces those little scraping sounds. Of the armor plates hitting themselves and the chainmail I'm wearing.
As I walked, I realized that this is not something you should wear for stealth. And armor or not, that monster still tears through me like butter, and makes my deaths more painful due to the metal denting inwardly against my body.
'Maybe I should just remove it...' I thought to myself, stopping in my tracks, looking through the visor at my armored hands and body.
A minute passed, the blue light humming against me.
'No. I shouldn't remove it.' I decided.
'Who knows? What if this mushroom I'm holding is poisonous or venomous, and the armor protects my hand?'
'What if I come across a rabid rat, and this armor protects me from it?'
And several more reasons, such as traps, arrows and whatnot.
But they all felt empty. As if I kept making up more reasons to hold on to this armor.
Because despite how much more painful it made every death...
... I still feel safer in it.
'It's as if... This armor gives me power to walk and think. Despite it all. I can tell. The me who came here with his school uniform. Who got hit by Kazuya as he was transported here and thrown to rot by the kingdom would have collapsed and gave up...'
I shook my head slowly.
'I can still hear him screaming and convulsing inside of me. Inside this armor. He is crying and beating and kicking and foaming... Still pissing all over himself. Still losing his mind.' I then look at my palm while holding the glowing mushroom.
Steady.
'This armor... Stops that kid from leaking out. It does have power.'
'... And it IS practical.'
I kept walking. Making my movements as silent as I could.
And as I walked, I came across a wooden door.
This one didn't even look cracked or ruined.
'Fine... Here we go...' I thought as I opened the door; it wasn't locked.
The door opened into a narrow, moss-slick hall lit only by the faint blue pulse of the mushroom in my left hand. I stepped through. Something sighed, a soft hiss like wind through reeds.
A needle of pain punched the side of my neck, just above the gorget.
'Huh..? Wha...'
At first it only felt like a pinch. Like I was visiting an affectionate, yet invasive relative.
That's when I started losing the strength in my legs.
I staggered one step, hand flying up to my neck to the location of the odd pain. My gauntlet closed on a thin wooden shaft. An arrow, no longer than my finger, fletched with black feathers. It had slipped between helm and pauldron like it knew the gap was there.
I merely plucked it out. It didn't hit me deep, I think. But as I looked at the arrow's tip, I noticed its tip was coated in a green-like liquid that was now slightly mixed with my blood.
Instantly. Despite not knowing what it was initially, I thought...
'Poison...?'
Then the fire began.
It started as a ring of ice around the wound, then flipped inside-out into molten wire threading through my windpipe. My knees hit stone before I felt them buckle.
'Oh... oh no...'
"Huaaak..!" I tried to breathe, but the air came labored. I had trouble controlling my lungs... Well, more than usual.
The mushroom rolled from my fingers and lay glowing on the floor like a tiny dying moon.
My tongue thickened. Saliva turned to foam, thick, bitter, unstoppable. It spilled over my lips, down the inside of the breastplate, warm and shameful.
"Hnnngh—!" The scream came out wet, strangled by the helm. I clawed at the visor, but the buckles would not give. My nails scraped metal like a trapped animal as what I believe was blood and snot exploded from my nose, suffocating me.
Inside the armor the kid woke up.
He exploded against the plates: kicking, thrashing, slamming his head against the padding until I felt blood in my hair. I could hear him shrieking with my own mouth, a high, keening sound that wasn't words anymore.
'Stop—stop it—let me out—LET ME OUT—'
My spine arched so hard the backplate screeched against stone. Limbs jerked in iron sleeves, joints popping. The poison was patient; it cooked me slowly, turning every nerve into a burning fuse.
I felt like I was on fire.
Vision tunneled. The blue mushroom blurred, doubled, until eventually vanishing.
Foam poured from the breathing slits now, pink threads of blood in it. I tasted iron and rot... And puked from how it tasted inside the helmet.
'Please... not again... not like this...'
My body curled on its side, armor clanging, legs drumming a useless rhythm against the floor. The kid inside kept beating at the walls of the shell that had promised to hold him together and was now only a metal coffin.
The pain peaked, white and soundless.
Then it released me, all at once, like a fist opening.
Darkness.
A moment of drifting nothing.
Then the familiar warmth, soft cotton against my cheek, the faint smell of laundry detergent and morning sun through curtains.
... And then it replayed once more.
But even if I knew Kazuya would soon take this moment away from me, I held her nontheless.
I savored it.
But seeing him taking her again... It's as if he swiped everything I savored as well.
I opened my eyes.
I was lying on the floor of the chamber again, next to Van's skeleton.
I twitched and writhed, stretching my arms in every direction, still feeling the pain of being burned and drowned at the same time by the poison.
But I did not foam this time, nor did I scream; aside from grunting.
Hurriedly, in my panting, I looked around.
'The... M... Monster isn't here... I guess... It went away... Fuck... Now I don't know where... it—'
VAN.
Where is VAN?!
I looked down to my waist, where I first attached Van's skull to.
He was still there.
'... Thank God.' I let out as I looked ahead.
'Alright... From now on...'
'I'm not gonna open doors like that anymore.'