95 | habit; already too late

Lucas realized, as the light metal blade clashed against his own sword, how little he knew about his brother. The one he was so confident in reading, in understanding.

It had been arrogant of him, he understood as he leaped backwards to avoid a deadly swipe of the sword, barely skimming past the tip of his nose. The white coat fluttered around Kane like a pair of wings clipped to his body, ready to open and fly away.

Wren had long lost her amused smile as she watched, concern spilling into her eyes. No matter how she played the role of a teasing jester, it was impossible to hide the genuine care steeped in her gaze.

Unlike Elias, whose time as a Teller drew a line between him and humanity, leaning towards a lack of empathy and indifference to most, Wren hadn't lost her humanity.

No, she pretended to not care about anything, because caring meant misery, and she didn't want to live being miserable.

Considering that she never really had a choice but to live, anyway.

Only, this might be the last time.

Whether it ended in failure or success. One more sword, one more battle, one last wish.

Her heart thrummed against her ribcage, beating with either anxiety or excitement, she couldn't be sure as her eyes followed the rapid flow of movements between siblings.

Unlike other Tellers, who'd seen the world and claimed the Forsaken Throne as their own, reaching the greatest heights and depending on their beliefs, crashed to the ground or soared to even greater powers, strengths, she had been tricked.

A Teller that wasn't really a Teller, a human in a state of half-death.

An outlier, an outcast.

Wren's gaze flickered distantly, the image of a beautiful woman smiling gently in her mind. It was hard to explain, how she could feel sorrow for somebody she knew so little about, for such a short time.

But things like that couldn't have an explanation. Nora was a person who accepted her, strange and obscure as her state was, and who laughed to her jokes.

Wasn't that enough?

In the world of destruction and despair, at least one person was laughing with her.

Wren felt a chill in her chest as she heard the swords clatter against each other, unrelenting. There was a little hesitation in Lucas' movements—he'd spent his whole time trying to save his brother, after all.

On the other hand, Kane's strikes were merciless, violent and abrupt. Yet somehow, they seemed enveloped in warmth, like a gentle hug.

It was so strange she couldn't help but keep watching.

More than a battle, it felt like a discussion. The complaints, spoiled and silly, from a younger brother, and the scolding and helpless indulgence of a big brother.

Lucas, a man who made a deal with a Catalyst to save one person.

Kane, prepared to sacrifice the world he loved to save one person.

They were fools fighting for the same thing, really, sighed Wren as she leaned her head against her palm. Her gaze trailed over to three locations.

One, where a cold, blonde-haired woman quietly watched without as much of a flicker in her eyes. A second, where two teenagers and an additional child watched. When had Rome popped up?

Adelaide had seemed as surprised as Wren when she turned her head slightly and saw the top fluffy hair of a young boy.

Rome didn't care for their surprise, looking in horror at the battle. He bit his lip as if he wanted to say something but was holding back. Julian seemed to empathize, awkwardly patting the boy's head.

Neither of the three moved, watching the fight.

And then the third, where a man gazed with fathomless blue eyes, standing atop the highest building in the surroundings, yet to fall. Shadows curled and blew around him, making his face unclear and obscured.

Wren felt as if he saw her, and stuck her tongue out childishly. She was still irritated in finding the cause of her life, always stuck in a repeating loop.

It was more annoying, because she was angry, and her anger had nowhere to fall since he refused to stand still and take a well-deserved beating.

"Kane!"

A panicked voice rumbled through the air, horror knitted in every letter.

Wren twisted her head, wide-eyed as she saw an onyx sword embedded in the doctor's stomach, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth as his eyes curved.

Lucas moved to pull away, but Kane curled his fingers around the blade, blood pooling between the cracks of hid fingers, over his sharp knuckles and dripping onto the ground.

"What the hell are you doing?" Lucas yelled out, panic rising.

Kane coughed, feeling the pain dig and bloom through his body. "I thought, that I wouldn't win this fight. You're strong, Lucas. You've... become so reliable. I always thought it was me who needed to protect you, and you who needed me but... it's always been me."

Kane sucked in a breath—was it more painful than expected because of the origins of Lucas' blade, or the fact that his brother held the hilt of it?

"You want to protect me, Lucas. But I'm tired of living without family."

Even after reuniting, they never had the chance to have a proper conversation.

The reason why, all those years ago, Lucas had walked away without looking back, leaving Kane in the house for four, all alone.

"I know... I realize, so late. That my methods of trying to help you was a burden. But Lucas, if you save everybody—if you protect me in this manner... we will be repeating the same cycle."

Lucas' gaze seemed indifferent under the mask, but Kane lowered his eyes to the barely trembling fingers that couldn't hide their emotion.

He laughed softly under his breath.

"Lucas, what wish did you want to make? If it was me, before, I think I would've wished to save you. No, I would've wished to see you one more time."

Lucas froze.

What wish had Kane wanted to make, as he crawled to the Forsaken Throne alone the first time, when he and Lucas never encountered each other? No, that wasn't right. Wasn't Kane's wish granted—made, and then rejected?

If things followed what he knew, then the world would've collapsed and Kane would become a part of the End's Delusion, a new Teller born of a broken reality.

His mind continued to spin, violently working.

Elias had the ability to go against the End's Delusion and turn back time. But really, that was unrealistic. It wasn't impossible, but it would be incredibly difficult.

But what if it had been done, because of a wish made?

All wishes, in some twisted way, were granted.

'I would've wished to see you one more time.'

"....." Lucas opened his mouth and closed it again, and while his face was obscured under the clown mask, Kane realized that something was wrong.

"Lucas?" called out Kane, even as he bled through his stomach. "What's wrong?"

Lucas blinked, snapping out of his confusion as he gazed at the rapidly worsening wound, turning away. In a cold, low voice, he called out, "Take him away to treat his injuries. I know you're there."

He turned around, stalking back up to the rubble without casting another glance at Kane. His tired shoulders straightened, and a little more clarity followed his step.

Kane reached out to call out, but a flare of pain burst through his stomach, and he knelt over as the words stuck in his throat. A hand wrapped around his arm, roughly tugging him up and the man groaned.

Lucas glared back. "Help him, not injure him further."

Elias smiled, cocking his head slightly. "I've never been all that great at following instructions, darling. Won't you explain it to me with your body?"

"...get out. Go." Lucas waved as if shooing away a fly.

Elias had to wonder if their kiss among the rubbles had been dreamed up by him—which was a little too pathetic to think about. Was he that enamored and desperate that he imagined their intimacy?

At that moment, Adelaide left her observing shadows and stepped through the fog. It was hard to tell, when she cheerfully smiled and praised Lucas like a teenager meeting their favourite idol, but when she walked, she felt every bit of a survivor as the others.

Adelaide, the King who killed a Catalyst. Adelaide, who traversed the seas to meet an online figure she respected, having nobody else.

She smiled at Lucas, her eyes gentle to him only.

He paused, regarding the girl. "Do you intend to stop me?"

"Of course not, I have no intentions to go against anything you desire." She said calmly, the words of loyalty resting on the tip of her tongue, and easily flowing. "I'll take that doctor for treatment, it won't be anything life threatening."

She stood tall in the fog, not once glancing at the Forsaken Throne. Unlike those who were desperate to end the End's Delusion, or to bring the dead back to life, she had nothing.

No ambitions, no cares. Nothing but a cowardly teenager who helped her along her journey, and a man she knew through texts.

"Even if you need to sacrifice me, I won't mind. I have nothing else."

Lucas gazed at her unflinchingly, admiration at her steady words. And also a burden, that there was another person who cared for the unworthy him.

It was one thing to love himself, it was another to have somebody else adore him.

He was not used to the latter.

Stumbling behind and nervously glancing left and right, Julian coughed as the fog trickled in his lungs. He gulped. "The... the mission is to find the last sword, right?" He whispered his words, unsure if it could be shouted aloud. "I'll... I have nothing else too."

"What loyal little friends you have, darling." remarked Elias with cool amusement.

Lucas glanced sideways, and turned to face the Catalyst. He said nothing, waiting for the other to continue speaking.

"I can't refuse you," said the man with resignation, understanding the silence that settled between. It was only Lucas' gaze that he could read like a spread book, letters printed in vivid ink. "What do you say to challenging a Catalyst?"

Kane was tossed sideways like a rag doll, caught in Julian's startled arms. The doctor clutched his stomach silently. 'Am I not a patient?'

Tension mixed with the fog, and suddenly it became scathingly difficult to breathe.

The fog was obedient, giving way to the two that peered at each other, a false King, and a lying Catalyst. Elias cocked his head, hooking the corners of his lips as he spread out his hands, strings dancing and playing around the sharp edges of his fingers.

Lucas stabbed the black sword, heavy with the weight of its power, into the ground. He swiped his hand across nothingness, and pulled a familiar metal bat.

"There's a little secret I'll share with you." Elias' rumbling voice carried through the chilled air. "One must defeat a Catalyst to claim the Throne. But it's false that you must collect all four swords before challenging us—no, that is an assumption falsely made. You can do it in a different order—defeat a Catalyst, and then collect the swords."

The strings snapped straight, deadly and long needles twisting in the air as they all plunged towards where Lucas stood.

"Well of course, Catalyst's choose who we wish to battle, so it's nearly impossible without the swords." Elias shrugged his shoulders calmly as Lucas' body arched in the air, curving as the strings darted past his flying limbs.

As soon as the tips of his feet brushed past the rubble, he pressed into the ground and kicked off, swinging the metal bat high in the air.

A string curled around his ankle, drawing a red line into his flesh and changing his trajectory.

Lucas' gaze flashed, but his movements that had been jerked weren't panicked. Instead, he swept the bat across the stone as he was flung sideways, casting sharp chunks of rock to fly in Elias' direction. The Catalyst leaned back, dodging, but a piece glided across his cheek, revealing a trickle of red.

Lucas pursed his lips, wiping the red on his own lips. "Red blood? Boring."

Elias glanced at his fingertips, coated in crimson. "Well. It seems like I'm not qualified for black blood yet—aren't you pleased in my humanity?"

Lucas recalled the rich black blood that had spilled onto the grounds in the memory that the Yuki-Ona revealed, and was a little disappointed. He tilted his head where he crouched, debating. "Is the rest of you made of red blood too?"

"Are you curious about what's inside of me?" Elias paused, amused. "I can show you?"

Suddenly, the conversation turned strange and Lucas scowled. His curiosity was immediately smothered by the suggestive quirk of Elias' lips.

Black or red blood, he supposed it didn't matter.

It was just Elias, in the end.

At first, Lucas had felt slightly betrayed by the secrecy stowed away by Elias. The entire time, had he been played and toyed with, another one of Elias' games to amuse himself after being lost to the cruel reality of the apocalypse?

But Lucas had seen seething desperation that night, under the starless skies. And when it came closer to the end, closer to his goal, he no longer had the energy to doubt.

Lucas felt really tired.

The two glanced at each other again, the amused curl of Elias' arrogant lips, and the faint satisfaction in Lucas' cold, snowy gaze.

They lunged at the same time, kicking up dirt and stone.

Different morals, different values. Two entirely different entities, with two vastly contradicting goals. One to save the world, the other to destroy.

There should be nothing in common, no balance between them.

There should be no understanding.

There should be no relationship.

"You're not very interesting." called out Lucas as threads curled at his neck, and the metal bat collided heavily with a broad shoulder. Elias grunted in pain, and Lucas hissed. "You're irritating, bothersome, and always disturbing me. It's annoying. Tasteless."

The strings, striking with stern and unhesitant movements, faltered. Elias closed his eyes and tilted his ear—perhaps there was dirt in it, because was this not an important and dramatic battle?

Was it really the time to insult him? Right now?

The words spoken were biting and rude, and yet Elias found himself smiling as he listened to the lull of the quiet voice, soaked in exhaustion and bitterness.

"Damn weed, you're like an ink splatter than no soap can wash away." muttered Lucas irritatingly, more to himself in rueful contemplation. "A weed, spreading its stupid roots everywhere." He clicked his tongue. "Unable to be killed, even if I'd like to kill you."

The more Elias listened, the stranger the conversation steered. Was this an insult, a confession, or a strange mixture of both?

The threads flip Lucas heavily onto his back, and the other retaliated by slamming rubble to fly at Elias once again. Lucas pivoted, avoiding any blows, and flipped upside down as the curve of his feet connected with Elias' waist.

Elias bent over, a cough pried from his chest as pain and aching roared through his body.

He laughed through his misery, almost certain that listening to the foolish sponge, while a little endearing, would only shape into something annoying.

"Alright, darling. Hold on—"

"But I don't dislike it."

An unwilling truth, spoken in a low, reluctant whisper. As if for the first time, Lucas was finally admitting it not only to Elias, but to himself.

Elias ducked low in a half-frozen state, barely avoiding the blur of silver that glided over his head viciously. From the corner of his eyes, he saw a leg swinging toward him, and he couldn't avoid it.

He snapped his strings as they latched around Lucas's body, dragging him to the ground. However, even as blood streaked the air, Lucas' body remained an unwavering force as he slammed into Elias, knocking the other backwards.

Both men coughed up blood, pain ripping through their bodies. As Elias fell back, Lucas lunged forward, pinning the other to the grating rubble.

He slammed the metal bat, narrowly grazing Elias' neck. Sweat coated his skin in a sheen of exhaustion, but his cold white eyes fixated on the man underneath him.

"Your existence became a habit. A new normal, a new regular."

When the different became normal, it could never return to how it once was.

The day Elias entered Lucas Silvius' life, it was already too late.