I was frozen by a feeling of futility. I was weak. I had relied too much on the power of my healing magic. I had believed that with it we would be okay. But I couldn’t even protect my own unit when they needed it most. It was unbearable. Unforgivable. But while I hated myself for what had happened, it was nothing compared to the hatred that boiled in my heart for the demon standing in front of me. He had spent the lives of his own unit without so much as a second thought just to kill us. And all of it for some damned Demon Lord.
Everything inside me warped into an uncontrollable rage. It was a darkness that spread through me, dyeing my every thought black.
“I will not forget,” Nero said. “Not the deaths of my men, nor the deaths of yours. Nor you, when you die here with them, Rose.”
At the sound of the demon’s voice, something broke inside of me.
“Huh?” I uttered.
My rage was a storm that threatened to engulf me entirely. Nero’s sword flew down toward me, but I stopped it with my hand. Blood spurted from the wound, but the sword’s momentum was halted.
“How?!” Nero exclaimed.
“You won’t forget? That doesn’t mean anything.”
Nero attempted to pull his sword free, but I refused to let go. The rage that swirled within me, all of it directed at Nero, flatly refused to entertain any other emotions. I was unaware of my own pain, my own suffering. I gripped Nero’s sword with even more strength. I ignored the world around me and punched him straight in the face.
“What do you know?” I spat. “What do you know of who they were?!”
Nero was protected by his wind armor, but it did not help. My fist went straight through it, colliding with its target. It didn’t matter how much blood went flying, or how deep his sword cut into my hand, I refused to stop punching.
At my fourth strike, Nero finally released his sword to try and launch wind magic at me. But I was quicker; I took a hold of his arm, lifted him up high, and slammed him hard into the ground. Pain shot through my arm as I did. I felt like it was going to be torn off, but I forced myself to heal and slammed Nero into the ground a second time. He let out another pained groan from the impact.
“To be remembered by the likes of you would only disgrace their names!” I shouted.
I kicked the fallen Nero hard in the ribs. The force of it easily broke through his magical defenses and slammed straight into him. He was launched into the air. I raced to meet him where he fell. Nero didn’t even have a chance to land. I punched him with everything I had. As he went flying once again, I took the sword still in my left hand and launched it at him. The blade went through his shoulder and pinned him to a distant tree.
Nero’s arms slumped to his side as though the impact had knocked him unconscious, but my rage was unabated. It flowed like a broken dam. I stormed over to him.
“I will kill you,” I said. “I will tear you limb from limb!”
I could not think of anything else. But my anger had clouded my mind. With it I had pushed myself far beyond my own abilities. The strain it put on my body had left me a bloody, broken mess. When I tried to ignore the pain and march onward, my legs refused to listen to me. I crumpled into a heap. I was beyond even the limits of my own healing magic. Just moving brought tremendous pain, but I would not stop.
I have to kill him.
“Just a little more . . .” I muttered, trying to spur myself to action. “I have to kill him. I have to . . .”
I could not let things end like this. I was going to crawl over to him and tear his throat out with my own teeth if I had to. So I did. I dragged myself toward Nero, but as I did, I noticed someone at his side. It was a demon, who was still just a young girl by the look of it. She watched me with fear in her eyes as she tried to pull Nero away and to safety.
“M-Master,” she said. “I’m here to save you.”
“Amila, I ordered you to stay back,” Nero muttered.
I could only watch, dumbfounded, as the girl dragged Nero away, his sword still lodged in his shoulder. I tried to keep moving, tried to get to them, but I couldn’t, because in that demon girl I saw shades of Aul.
Nero had used his own soldiers as disposable pawns. And yet, like me, he was saved by one of his own. The sheer shock at the sight of it robbed me of all my hatred and all my rage. I was left there, unable to move, as the girl dragged Nero away, occasionally looking back at me with terror-filled eyes. They disappeared into the distance, leaving me with a swirl of emotions that threatened to tear apart my very sanity. I dragged myself to my knees and pounded the ground.
“Damn it! Why did this happen?!” I screamed.
Useless. I can’t even kill my foe.
I couldn’t bear it. The weight of it threatened to crush my heart entirely. But then I heard the slivers of a voice calling out from behind me.
“Captain . . .”
“Aul!”
She hovered at the very edge of death, lying in a pool of her own blood. I forced myself to move and kneel by her side. I tried to heal her.
“Captain . . .” she said again.
“Don’t speak! I’m going to heal you!”
“Y-you can’t . . . I’m . . . I’m too far gone. And this wound . . . it won’t heal, right?”
Her wound had come from Nero’s blade. Healing magic wouldn’t work on it until the curse had run its course. My right eye and my left hand were no different.
But even then, I refused to give up.
“There might still be a way!” I said.
“Captain, it’s okay.”
“I said don’t speak!”
I put pressure on Aul’s wound to stop the bleeding to no avail. I watched as the light in her eyes faded. It hit me then that she would soon breathe her last breath, but I did not want to believe it.
“Fighting under you, at your side,” Aul uttered, “it made me happy.”
“Aul,” I whispered.
Why are you looking at me like that?
She looked satisfied. She looked like a girl at peace. In contrast to my panic, Aul wore only a placid smile.
“I have no regrets,” she said. “It was an honor.”
“Stop that!” I said. “Why would you say something like that?! I won’t let you die! I can’t!”
“The others . . . I know they felt the same. Please, go on. Be the woman we all look up to.”
Aul stared up into the distance. She no longer heard me as she went on. The energy in her voice waning with each word. I felt the life disappearing from her.
“You’ll always be . . . our captain,” she said.
And with that, the last hints of life in her eyes faded away completely. Her body felt like ice in my hands. She was gone. While I could heal the wounds on her body, I could not replace a soul that had left it.