Rupture: Rise of the Demon King (39 page)

“Ah! What is this?” Yoshino stood next to a tube of lightning that raced infinitely in either direction. Yoshino’s hand came close to the lightning and a small part arch into him. Suddenly, Seeko could feel Yoshino’s power, for at that moment, he was linked with the demon.
And I thought Kerodesis’s spark was huge …
Yoshino’s dark gray spark was twice as big as Kerodesis’s. His mind was so alien to Seeko that he flinched from the connection. However, Seeko did notice that the spark was dull from the recent combat.

Yoshino moved away from the tube of lightning and the awareness was broken. Seeko was still reeling, shaking his head, which only blurred the world more.

The demon smiled. “So this is how you and Kerodesis share power?” he said. He raised his hand and his blade materialized in it. “What would happen if it was destroyed?”

Seeko rushed toward Yoshino but was not quick enough. The blade flew downward and connected with the lightning in a flash.

Seeko’s head felt like it was going to explode. The light expanded, both in front of his eyes and behind them. The orange spark in the sky disappeared and Seeko’s world was bathed in darkness.

Yoshino teleported in front of the stunned hero. “One more thing, Seeko. If there is a future version of me running around somehow, do you know what that means?”

Seeko wasn’t listening. He was in too much pain.

He came close to Seeko’s ear, almost whispering: “It means that no matter what you do today, I am still alive at the end of it. And you know that I am too, for I eventually offer you the chance to come
home
.” Seeko’s eyes went wide. “You cannot deny it. But … there is no such guarantee for you, my friend. I am afraid that today is your last day.” Yoshino backed off, laughing. “I have such a bright future ahead of me! I must be going, but there is someone I want you to meet.”

He moved to the side, revealing another Seeko. Yoshino faded into black smoke and out of Seeko’s mind.

“Hello, Seeko Dris,” the copy said. “My name is Kerodesis.”

Seeko squinted at the copy, head still spinning.

“No hello back?” Kerodesis summoned a sword of copper flame. “No matter.” Then he walked briskly to Seeko and impaled him on the blade. Kerodesis withdrew the blade and Seeko coughed blood. He fell to the ground as Kerodesis laughed. “I’m free again!”

With his fading eyesight, Seeko saw Kerodesis look at him one last time.

“Good-bye, Seeko Dris. And good riddance.”

Then all went black.

35: Rekindle

Empty, white, a blank canvas. White that extended in all directions, unification in a formless world. An infinite time span passed, or maybe no time at all, and still nothing existed. Then, something appeared in the white, a dot of
other
. The anomaly expanded, becoming a weakly pulsing green pinpoint of light. It floated in the white, alone and purposeless. After a lifetime, the spark became self-conscious. It questioned itself, its existence, until a miracle happened: it remembered who it was.

Seeko Dris, Hero of Endetia. What happened?

The white canvas responded to Seeko’s query. An imprint, like a faded image, of his fight with Yoshino appeared in the white. It was from a different point of view, separate from himself, and he watched with impassiveness. It came to the part where he and Yoshino charged at one another with orbs in their hands. Then, something new to Seeko: Yoshino overpowered him, and soon he was standing at Seeko’s side, palm to his forehead. The view expanded, and Keith, Mori, and Bianca climbed to the top, wounded. They saw Seeko collapse.

“Your hero is dead,” Yoshino was saying with a smile. He rummaged through Seeko’s pockets. “Thanks for gathering the necklaces for me. It would have been way more difficult for me to do it, with turning on my own kind and all.”

Mori tried to run to Seeko’s body, but Keith held her back. “Seeko!” she cried.

The Seeko spark watched on with morbid curiosity.
My friends! They’re going to die!

As the Seeko anomaly thought that, more imprints opened around him, showing the deaths of his other friends. He saw Lorissa fall to Greg’s blade, Kazuma to Yoshino’s, and Hannet plummet into the canyon before someone’s knife stabbed her through the heart. Simultaneously, he saw people he didn’t even know dying. He saw a man with curtained blonde hair lose his head to Yoshino. He saw a man with no hands kill another man with messy brown hair and a sword even bigger than Keith’s.

The images, the pain, were too much … Seeko dispelled the thoughts about his friends and the images disappeared.

The Seeko spark was so enthralled in his images that he did not notice another anomaly appear before him. When he did, he jumped, or he would have, if he had feet.

A young girl of maybe five years old stood before the green light. She had long purple hair that covered her eyes and was wearing a black dress. She reached out to the emerald light, but her hand stopped an inch from it.

“Are you another image of another friend?”
Seeko asked.

Something harpooned itself into Seeko’s consciousness. Seeko reached to it, reminded of the first time Lorissa talked to him. The imprints responded, showing images of her, but he dispelled them.

The intrusion spoke to Seeko. It was the girl, as Seeko suspected, but her voice was bone-chillingly cold:
“Seeko Dris?”

Seeko responded shakily,
“Yes?”
He thought back to the girl.

“Your soul has been split. Was it Yoshino?”

Seeko was confounded.
“Who are you? How do you know Yoshino?”

The girl ignored his questions.
“I cannot take a spilt soul back into the Aether.”

“Aether? What is that?”

“First demon-human, but not the last.”

The girl looked to the spark that was Seeko. She cocked her head and Seeko saw her grinning. Her teeth were pointed and razor sharp, like shark’s teeth. Seeko pulled away from the contact, frightened.

“I will see you again. Next time, you will not escape.”
The girl turned and faded into white, laughing as she did so.

Her laughter kept Seeko from doing anything for a while, so frightened he was.
I hope I never run into her again.

/ / / / /

Seeko wandered the blankness, the only chaos in a world of order. A second passed. Minutes passed. Years passed before the emerald spark. All time felt the same to Seeko. An eon passed in the same amount of time that a second did. Maybe there was no time in the blankness. It reminded him of when he had been trapped within his own mind. The blankness responded with images of Seeko as his friends took him to the Penumbran Forest. The memories made him think of what his friends were doing right now—which only opened dozens more images. Seeko quickly dismissed the images before he was overwhelmed.

Thoughts involving time do not work … What were my friends doing after I died on the citadel?

The white responded with an image.

“Seeko!” Mori cried out. She tried to run to him, but Keith stopped her.

Yoshino stared at the necklaces, watching them reflect the dying sun. “It looks like the Irenic Empire is here,” he said. “The Halcyon are done for.”

“So are you!” Mori yelled. “You’re not getting out of here alive!” The trio ran for him.

“I beg to differ.” Then, using the necklaces for support, Yoshino quickly created a demon portal before him. He waved. “Good-bye, Keith … Bianca. Good-bye, Mori. Tell Luxant I’m sorry I didn’t kill him myself.” Then he was gone, running through the portal before they reached him.

Bianca cursed and Mori stopped before Seeko. She knelt before him and reached out—tentatively, fearfully.

Seeko’s body grabbed Mori’s hand suddenly. Orange fire engulfed her hand and she screamed. Seeko’s body rose, keeping its iron grip on her. Keith, alarmed at her scream, tackled Seeko, forcing him to let go of Mori.

Seeko’s body kicked Keith off him and scrambled to his feet as Keith recovered. “Kerodesis is free!” Seeko’s mouth said with his voice. “You will all die for what you have wrought!” Kerodesis raised his hands and summoned a sword of orange flame.

The spark in the white watched on in horror.
“I hate this part,”
something said from within Seeko’s mind.

Seeko’s images shattered and he found the anomaly calling for him. An angel stood before him, a tall woman with long black-to-blonde hair, white feathered wings, and golden armor. She wore a silver mask, reminding Seeko of his father.

“The part where Kerodesis came back after everyone thought you were dead.”
The angel’s voice was divine and songlike, instantly captivating Seeko. The voice was also harmonic, as if there were several people talking at once.
“Seeko, are you listening?”

Seeko responded to the angel.
“Who are you? You’re different from the girl from earlier.”

“My name is Anasheri. I, or rather, we, are the Gods of Order.”

“Plural? Why are you ‘the Gods’?”

She laughed a wonderful laugh.
“Because, like you did, hero, I had multiple people within me.”
The masked changed to gold.
“Unlike you, though, we learned to coexist.”
She spoke differently, like another voice was now the lead voice.

The mask switched back to silver.
“You are in the Tabula Rasa, an area between worlds. You are not completely dead, or Nyeri would have taken you with her. No, your spark was split in two, done by none other than the devious Yoshino.”

“You know Yoshino?”

The angel nodded once.
“Seeko, I think you can stop him. I think you and the others who will follow will defeat him.”

“How do you know? Are you a seer?”

She laughed again.
“The Tabula Rasa is timeless. Past, present, and future have no meaning here. But it also shows things that could happen, things that might have happened. The seers use the Tabula Rasa to make their predictions.”

The spark dimmed.
“But how can I stop Yoshino? I’m dead and my friends fight my demon self.”

She reached out to him.
“There are things I want to show you. Take my hand.”

“How? I don’t have hands to reach out with.”
As Seeko thought about hands, and about his body in general, his spark reacted and his body formed around it.
“Okay …”
Seeko cautiously took her hand.

An image appeared before Anasheri, and Seeko stared at the image with awe. Before he knew it, he was pulled into the image, lost within.

/ / / / /

Kerodesis stood before the three people who once called him Seeko. Mori surrounded her burnt hand with water, trying to soothe the pain. Bianca stood at the ready, bow aimed at his chest. Keith drew his blade from the sheath on his back and took a deep breath.

Once friends, now enemies. Kerodesis smiled and beckoned them on.

The citadel rumbled, the first strike of the siege of Gemini.

Bianca fired. Before the arrow connected, Kerodesis became flame. He reappeared behind her, but before he could strike, a pillar sent him sky-high. He recovered while in the air and fired dark orbs at Bianca, but was quickly stopped by the claymore-wielding Keith, who jumped at him. Kerodesis narrowly dodged the lightning-fast swing, so Keith solidified the air under himself and jumped again at Kerodesis. This time Kerodesis had to parry away the blade with his sword of copper flame.

They landed and Keith pressed the assault. Kerodesis was slowly pushed back by Keith’s quick, heavy swings. However, soon Keith slipped up, overswinging, and Kerodesis backhanded him to his knees. Before he could land the finishing blow, Mori was at him, jabbing with her rapier.

Mori held back Kerodesis long enough to allow Keith to recover. Then Kerodesis teleported behind her and swung at her back … only to be blocked by a pillar of stone. Bianca moved her hand and the pillar moved with it, slamming into Kerodesis at an awesome speed. The pillar smashed into a nearby crenellation, pinning Kerodesis down.

The citadel trembled. In the dying light, Mori could see that General Todd’s army had captured the outer city, and already trebuchets were firing on the inner city, their missiles guided by those skilled in wind and earth magic. At the same time, earth magicians were slowly crumbling the gate that stood between the inner and outer cities.

Kerodesis converted to flame and attacked Bianca. She blocked and parried using bow and earth, but it wasn’t enough and soon Kerodesis launched a fireball into her legs. Bianca slammed into the ground, face-first. Kerodesis approached slowly, but Bianca wasted no time,
melding
with the ground and disappearing.

Bianca’s hand grabbed Kerodesis from below. Keith charged at Kerodesis, but before he could connect with the demon, he was fire again. Bianca’s hand sunk back into the stone and Keith hopped backward, avoiding the flame.

Suddenly, Kerodesis launched an orange torrent of flame right at Keith, for he was too close to dodge.

But someone else took the blow for Keith: Bianca. She rose instantly from the ground, shielding Keith from the burning blaze. The assault stopped and Bianca fell face-first again, but this time she did not meld into the ground.

Kerodesis disappeared, and the citadel shook again. He rematerialized a dozen feet away from Keith, laughing hysterically.

The grip on Keith’s claymore tightened, and he looked from the downed girl to the demon, shaking.

Then he flung himself at him, berserk.

/ / / / /

Seeko was, well, shorter than he remembered. He sat on a small cushion, tears in his eyes. He was in a room that looked like a nursery for small children, and after a moment realized that he
was
a small child.

Seeko was seeing things from the boy’s point of view, yet did not control the boy. The boy continued to weep, stopping only briefly when a man in white robes entered. The boy looked into the eyes of the stranger.
Brown eyes! This man is special.
Seeko cried again as the man lifted him high into the air.

“I want to go home!” he whined. “You aren’t my daddy!”

The man frowned. “How can you tell?” he asked.

He pulled Seeko close and held him. He sang, calming the boy. After a moment, Seeko fell asleep in his arms.

He woke back up instantly, once again on the pillow. Or at least what he thought was instantly, but the window said differently.
It’s past my bedtime.
Little Seeko yawned and rose.

The door opened again and a man in all black entered. He had white hair and red eyes, but Seeko did not find this strange. He knew this man.

“Seeko,” the man said softly, reaching for Seeko’s hand. “Are you ready to go home?” Seeko rubbed an eye with his small fist. The white-haired man smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Seeko grabbed his hand and the man took him out of the room.

/ / / / /

As Keith rushed toward Kerodesis, a dart of water raced past him, aimed for the demon. The rapid water caught Kerodesis off guard and sent him spinning. Keith rammed into the twirling demon, his large blade drawing blood. If it wasn’t for Mori’s attack, Keith would have sliced the demon in two.

Kerodesis used his momentum to send an arc of flame into Keith’s back. The water moved again, put out the fire on Keith, and then whipped back toward Kerodesis. It rammed into the demon again, sending him to the ground. Kerodesis shifted to flame after the water soared past and reappeared behind Mori.