[Snippet] The Masks We Wear (Honkai: Star Rail): Chapter 8 (Patreon)

Allen had left in a hurry.

If someone saw him, they might have thought he was running for his life. Perhaps he was in a way, because a fear that drove him forward was something primordial inside of him. A gnawing in his heart, down to his core.

It was a fear that if he stopped, if he turned around, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from going back.

Dozens of masks were worn in a matter of seconds. He ran past Cloud Knights, having turned into their own image in the blink of an eye. He moved right between a group of Mara Struck that barely registered him as an anomaly due to a change in appearance before he had escaped from their view.

He had all but turned into a blur to normal perceptions, his figure and appearance changing with every moment; every set of eyes that landed on him had seen something different than the person standing next to them.

The Docks—the Stargazer Navalia—where they move and store cargo, it was a blur to his eyes as well because he had no thoughts about it before the shipping containers, the flying cargo transports, and all manner of workers were left behind him.

His steps slowed down, and he finally came to a stop when he entered an area of commerce. That is, he saw plenty of residents, tourists, and random passersby as they went on their normal days. 

A large, hexagonal glass floor was inlaid into the ground at the center of the area he found himself in. It was designed in the figure of a lotus, with a few steps allowing one to walk down to it and peer through the glass at the stars below.

He braced himself on a small fountain’s edge, lilies and lotus flowers drifting across the slowly running water.

Allen realized where he was as he took deep breaths.

He had already turned back into himself, but with many masks now covering his face.

From his memories, he knew this area was called the Exalting Sanctum, due to the Seat of Divine Foresight nearby.

Was it a mistake coming here?

It was a thought driven from panic. From having to confront things he really didn’t want to right now. Wearing so many masks, it wasn’t just to protect him from the pain of the world. When you wore so many masks, the world was easy to forget.

The people passed by unknowing.

The minutes ticked away, untroubling.

The colors fade away, unfeeling.

The world around him felt hollow. 

Empty.

A haze covered his vision, and things seemed to begin to slow down around him as his head started to throb. 

Where was he?

Xianzhou Loufu, it took him several moments to remember.

Why was he here again?

There was something he needed to do. But he was having trouble remembering it. If he couldn’t remember, then it probably wasn’t that important in the first place. 

Just…keep walking forward.

One step in front of the other, he’ll find what he was looking for, right?

Why were the plants and flowers around him black and white? He could have sworn they were green and red and pink before…or maybe he was misremembering. 

Something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. 

There was something on his face; it felt itchy. 

He reached up to grab it as the air around him vibrated, and his eyes landed on something he was clutching in his hand.

His fingers unfolded, and in a world of black and white, a small speck of gold bloomed around his palm.

It was like a frame snapping back to focus; everything just fixed back into place. Allen blinked, looking around with his breath hitching in confusion. He knew where he was, he knew what his goals were, and…of course it was his mask on his face.

"Oh…right." He slowly smiled as he stared at the ticket.

His anxious, beating heart was soothed.

“Thank you, Mr. Conductor," Allen said softly. “I also hope I fill the hole in my heart. I hope I fill it before it devours me.”

He was a masked fool, and he knew what he was here to do.

The layers of masks were pulled off until he put on the proper one.

He smiled again, because the stage had already been set by others. He had to go find a few extra cast members to join his circus now.

From the spot he was standing, he could see the Ambrosial Arbor towering in the sky.

Thankfully, it still hadn’t been activated yet; it still looked like a dead tree even if it radiated an oppressive feeling to anyone who looked at it. Allen was more or less able to guess what the timeline was like right now.

That meant that one of his main cast wasn’t at the point of recruitment, that Creation Furnace shouldn’t have been damaged yet.

That left his other main cast member for immediate recruitment.

He just hoped that they would be willing to accept the job offer.

@***@

Allen didn’t immediately go about his work.

He was wandering around this area of the Luofu, doing his best to get a mental landscape of the place. The Xianzhou Luofu was much bigger than something behind a screen, and it was quite easy to get lost or not find what one was looking for.

He eventually found his way towards the Alchemy Commission.

It took his breath away because he looked out and saw the artificial ocean that this part of the Luofu sat on.

The Xianzhou Luofu was a planetary-sized ship, but to actually see an artificial ocean swaying and moving, the tides crashing against the stone walls of the ledge he perched over, it was breathtaking.

Chaos hadn’t erupted here yet, so the area was still full of people.

The Healer’s Market, that he remembered. There were hundreds of people walking around; there were stalls and markets set up, mostly for selling medicine or the like, but other things too.

Not to mention, there were physicians, healers, and doctors everywhere.

Most of the actual shops catered to this specific profession. There were at least four clinics side-by-side that he passed by and another doctor’s office across the street.

It took Allen a moment to realize that a significant number of people here weren’t the Foxians or the long-lived human race. Rather, he noticed their pointy ears and certain facial features and could guess that they were Vidyadhara.

His wandering had him pause for a moment because out of the corner of his eye, he found what he was looking for.

Someone he believed to be of the Ten-Lords Commission had gone down a path away from the market area and through an archway towards an alley with some less popular stalls and stores.

The entrance to the Shackling Prison was near the Scalegorge Waterscape, but beyond that, he didn’t know much else. His guess was here, where the Scalegorge Waterscape connected to the Alchemy Commission, and it seemed he was correct.

The Ten-Lords Commission was a special commission among the Xianzhou. They operated at the highest levels of secrecy and authority. Even the general of the Luofu didn’t have the right to order them around, and he was more or less an emanator of the hunt.

It was because their identities and responsibilities were too special.

People know what Mara-struck was.

However, most people didn’t know the finer details.

The people of the Xianzhou, due to the curse from thousands of years ago, retained being a long-lived species, but as they get older, they get closer and closer to becoming Mara-Struck. They lose themselves eventually; it was the inevitable conclusion for all of the long-lived humans of the Xianzhou.

Therefore, they had to take measures for their aging population.

The Ten-Lords Commission, one of their primary responsibilities, was to handle those people who became Mara-Struck and lost themselves. They would be imprisoned within the Shackling Prison if needed or directly killed if not.

Perhaps even more than that, they also handle all the oddities that pop up on the Xianzhou.

The Cloud Knights are the Mortal Envoys of the Xianzhou; the Ten-Lords Commission handles the other stuff.

The Ten-Lords Commission possessed a lot of strange and odd abilities and facets to it. Thankfully, he had outside knowledge that let him cheat a little for what he wanted to do.

As the suspected Ten-Lords Commission person was walking away, Alen pulled a card from his sleeve.

A Jack of Spades

He flicked it out as it glided above the ground before teleporting once and finding the pocket of that Ten-Lords Commission person.

Out of the corner of his eye, Allen saw the man pause in his steps and look around strangely but continued on his way.

The Ten-Lords Commission: each member more or less severs their connections with the outside world when they become a member. Most of them live entirely in seclusion and dedicate everything to their job.

There is one minor exception: there is a job within the Ten-Lords Commission that requires the coordination with outside forces, even if just to a small degree.

They could basically be called secretaries, as they’re the ones who usually go run errands when they need to outside.

If Allen was guessing correctly, then he knew the person’s identity based on the way they dressed.

If not, it didn’t matter.

Whether he goes in quiet or not, his goal is the same. He preferred to do it seamlessly, quietly, and without much of a commotion. But for the sake of his goals, if he had to do it the brutish way, he would do so also.

If he had to make the Xianzhou his enemy, then so be it.

He gathered a bit of imaginary energy and teleported towards his placed Jack, using another of his Jacks to form a link.

He stood on top of a building a few dozen meters away as the same man walked down the same path, heading further down the road.

With another burst of teleportation, Allen was leaning against a wall pretending to be on his phone, wearing the face of a Foxian as the man passed without even a glance sent his way.

In fact, the man seemed completely unperturbed.

Allen briefly wondered if he was not walking towards work, but rather, maybe he was walking home instead?

There could be many reasons he was around here; maybe he was on vacation. Who knew?

It was only because of the coincidence that had Allen following him on this hunch.

But as the man approached a large bricked wall, Allen’s lips curled up. For most people, they would see a massive wall connected to a ledge that led up to another part of the Xianzhou, but he could see through it.

There was an illusion around it.

He wasn’t sure of the mechanism because it wasn’t a normal Pathstrider method. Rather, it seemed some method of magic? There were many strange and odd abilities and methods in the universe. 

There are plenty of entities out there that can manipulate Imaginary Energy—the Energy of Paths at their core—without walking a Path itself.

He knew that the Ten-Lords Commission certainly had many hidden facets about it, but he also reevaluated it in his heart, because what he knew before couldn’t fully encompass its actual breadth now.

It wasn’t a simple wall; it was a massive stone gate.

Sitting right here, accessible if anyone wanted to walk to it.

Sure, it was at the end of a long alleyway that didn’t get much traffic, but it was still in the open.

Allen looked around; he noted four people sitting at various spots at a small restaurant on an outside table to the side.

There was a man drinking tea on the opposite side of the road.

There was a woman selling some fresh produce from a street stall a bit further away.

All of them glanced at the man walking towards the gate, and Allen understood that the Ten-Lords Commission most certainly had their agents controlling this area.

The massive gate opened; Allen could hear the grinding of gears and the crackling of chains as the extremely heavy gate was slowly opened, revealing the inside of the Shackling Prison.

The Ten-Lords Commission person stepped inside, and the gate immediately began to close behind him.

With a thought, Allen touched down on the stone ground behind the man just as the gate closed.

The sudden gust of wind had the man turn around with a startled noise. It alerted a couple other entities around him. Two, robotic entities standing guard, they immediately turned to face him, ready to commence battle if there was an intruder, but they sighted no one.

The man also spun around, as if feeling a breath on the back of his neck, but he saw no one.

He saw the robotic guards turn back to their positions, and he let out a sigh and continued on his way.

Allen was standing on top of the gate mechanism that housed the massive chains that pulled it open, just out of view.

He played with the Jade of Spades between his fingers that he had initially hidden on the Ten-Lords Commission person.

Aurumaton Spectral Envoys.

That’s what those robotic guards were called, from his memories.

In the game, they were annoying and strong. He wasn’t too keen on testing that in real life, even if he had absolute confidence in handling them. Allen looked upwards; there were hundreds of chains descended from above, and he couldn’t even see the ceiling of this prison through normal methods.

Beyond the robotic guards, there were living ones too.

Wraith Wardens.

For some reason, it was exclusively women dressed in the same uniform, all wielding the same polearm-axe weapon. 

Using his Jack, he teleported across the room to the other side, above all their heads. There was a wide stairway that headed downwards as he teleported to a spot that couldn’t be seen by anyone else, and he quickly shifted into the form of a Wraith Warden and methodically adjusted his demeanor to match those stoic warriors.

He descended the stairs before they opened up into the central prison system.

Ethereal ghostly fire pulsed above braziers all around the massive octagonal room. The entire prison was like a massive cave under the sea, even with sea-flora having grown on the cave walls.

Allen walked forward, approaching a railing that overlooked the descent downwards to the lower floors of the prison.

There were thousands of cells lining the downward descent. The octagonal room is empty at the center bar, a control station with connecting bridges that could be moved or adjusted at a moment’s notice to prevent any prisoners from leaving their cells.

On each floor of the prison, just from this angle, he could see hundreds more of those Aurumaton Spectral Envoys standing guard.

Just as he was deciding on how to get downwards without drawing attention to himself, he spotted something interesting.

A courier crane.

A small robotic bird.

They’re mostly used for message delivery or item delivery all over Xianzhou. They also operate as the Xianzhou’s spy network, but not many people know about that little secret.

The thing was, most masked fools could only put on masks to appear as other people.

As an Emanator, Allen had a bit more…leeway.

He had turned into a cat before.

While it wasn’t comfortable, nor exactly easy, he could do a bit more than a normal masked fool.

A masked fool wears a mask to lie to the world about who they are. Allen was a bit better about lying about who he was. As long as the laugh was to be had, what was the difference between a person and a cat, a man or a bird?

Allen flicked his Jack down into the abyss downwards, and between floors, he teleported, and in free fall, he waved a hand over his face, turning into a courier crane. Just before he fell past a guard over the next floor, that guard only saw a courier crane fly downwards and didn't pay it any mind.

With how often they see those things come and go, who would pay attention to one?

He didn’t know how many floors he fell or how many stories downward this prison contained, but after several moments, he saw the ground floor. The lowest level, where they keep them, is the most heinous criminals in the Xianzhou’s history.

But even here, it wasn’t low enough for who he was looking for.

There was a hidden staircase, a mechanism needed to reveal it, but from his memories, it wasn’t needed. 

Teleportation was such a convenient tool. He more or less needed to know where he was teleporting, but from his memories, that was no problem. With a flick of his wrist, he appeared even one more room down. Decrepit chains swayed from the ceiling above him; natural light didn’t shine down here.

There were statues all around the room, and as soon as he stepped on the ground, their eyes turned red and came alive.

“How cliche.” Allen clicked his tongue.

Red mechanical lanterns ignited, giving off an even more eerie feeling.

They were guardian lions, and they immediately saw him as an enemy.

Allen jumped into the air, arcing over one that tried to take a bit of him. Another leapt at him, trying to use its heavy stone body to crush him downward, but Allen teleported across the room as a third opened its mouth to release a breath of fire.

That took Allen by surprise.

While cool, it wasn’t exactly aesthetically appropriate. 

He was fairly sure that their mythological counterparts didn’t breath fire!

That was going to have to be a penalty.

Allen drew the King of Hearts.

Holding it between his fingers, he sliced downwards, and a wave of power arced across the room, splitting part of the room, and the Lion statue was cut in half.

The thing about mindless automatons was that they didn’t care about their friend dying. They all jumped at him as he landed back on the ground. Allen held both hands up, a card between each of his fingers, and he threw them all, piercing through their stone skin.

The Cards embedded themselves into the stone walls as the Lion Guards were cut into pieces and fell to the ground.

The room lit up in an eerie green as well, with wisps of ghost fire flying out of the broken bodies of those lions and shooting up through the ceiling.

“That isn’t good," Allen noted. They were probably aware that someone broke in, but there wasn’t much he could do at this point.

He retrieved the cards he had just thrown, and he heard a rumbling up above; the mechanism and the central pillar appeared to be moving as dust shook off the ceiling above his head.

“Welp, no need to be quiet anymore.” He took his king card again and slashed it forward at the single cell door in front of him.

It wasn’t a cage, it wasn’t a door, in the normal sense, even if it was made of normal stone and iron.

The pieces fell down, revealing a swirling ghastly portal behind it.

Allen, without a care, walked right into it.

It was a small world.

Emphasis on the small part.

It was a single, somewhat small room.

With only one resident.

And he opened his eyes.

“You’re not one of my kin, are you here to release me?” A massive wolf-like creature asked him.

It stood there, wrapped in hundreds of chains, bound by glowing sigils, unable to move even an inch.

The Borisin Brood Lord.

Called a scourge upon all worlds.

Just him opening his mouth, the scent of blood filled this cell of his. 

Hoolay, the Lord of the Borisin.

His form was utterly massive; Allen had to tilt his neck upwards to look him in the eyes. The wolf could quite literally squeeze him entirely—based on size—with a single hand.

“You’re Hoolay, the great Blood Moon Scourge," Allen stated.

The wolf didn’t immediately answer. “How long has it been? Is my reputation still known outside? You’re not one of those Xianzhou Long Lived. Release me and there will be a reward, regardless of your reason for doing so.”

He was a very practical person as well.

He didn’t ask Allen's reason for being there, even if he assumed it was to release him. 

“Hey there, ever thought about running away and joining the Circus!?” Allen, of course, gave his best sales pitch.

The giant wolf stared at him.

"...Masked Fool.” He put it together fairly easily. “I smell the stench of lies and humor on your tongue. No, there’s something else there.” The massive wolf’s nose twitched, and Allen could see its eyes widened. “What kind of thing are you?”

“Ah, how rude.” Allen frowned. “Well, I’m not putting on a performance at this time.” He sighed. “Usually, I would have some witty banter, or maybe a good one-liner to throw out. You know, something sufficiently impressive and deep-sounding, only for it to actually not mean anything, and everyone just agrees it sounds cool because they don’t want to look silly for not understanding.”

Allen walked around the room; he grabbed one of the chains, flicking it.

“But alas, frankly… I didn’t have much confidence in you accepting even if I offered normally. You’re the type who would rather die than bend a knee or bow their head.”

The wolf let out a burst of air from its snout as if to confirm that thought.

“But regardless, I’ll ask. Do you hate it down here? Is life meaningless for you now? How about a second chance in death?” Allen held his arms out with a big smile; his cowl appeared over his head, and he became covered in his white cloak. “Better a circus than a cage, right?” His circus appeared behind him as it pushed away the walls of the cell. 

“What do you say, Hoolay? Would you come become a member of my circus? There’s dental, profit sharing, stock options… Oh, and you’ll be able to fight some strong opponents in the future.”

Hoolay shook in his chains as the circus appeared behind him. The roar of laughter, the chants of the gathered crowd, and the faint whispers beckoning him inside. 

He was ignoring most of the words from the Masked Fool because he knew that Masked Fools tended to speak nonsense. Rather, he was focused more on the oppressive, eerie feeling that filled the room.

Something was not right, and that spilled out from under the tent that was pushing back the reality within his cell.

And he came to realize something rather horrifying as he shook and rattled his chains. “No, Emanator? An Emanator of Elation?”

“Ding, ding, we have a winner! Do you know your prize? You get to join my circus!" Allen clapped his hands. “How about it, Hoolay? I’m offering you an escape, but it comes with the caveat of lowering your head and…well, death.”

“Why is an Emanator of Elation, no, what is that!?” The curtain on his circus tent pulled back.

Hoolay’s fur stood on end. “No! What is that!? You’re not an emanator of elation! Why is that there? How do you walk that path!?"

The room shook violently as Hoolay thrashed against his restraints, even managing to snap one of the chains behind him. Unfortunately, there were dozens more to keep him restrained.

“Never! I will not bow my head to that! I will die with pride! I will not be pulled into your despair!" Hoolay roared furiously.

From within the Circus, ropes shot out; one of them grabbed onto his hand that was inching forward, snapping another chain. 

Another rope grabbed at his leg, a third moving around his neck.

“Fortunately, I don’t need your consent.” Allen’s tone and demeanor changed completely. “Hoolay, when it comes to Pathstriders, Below Emanators, you could be considered around the peak. I have use for you.” He held the king in his grasp, and he slashed it against the wolf's neck.

Blood sprayed outwards, and the Wolf did its best to roar, to fight it, but it slowly hit the ground.

One of the strongest Pathstriders in the Universe, someone who reached the peak below the Emanator level, but he was chained up and couldn't fight back, so he was but a sitting duck.

Now, though?

He would only be filled with regrets, longing, and hatred. Enough to keep his soul fluid and reluctant to leave immediately. The scourge of many planets, he died like a dog, his neck slashed without even being able to fight back. To him who had found his worth within slaughter and death, it was the greatest insult.

His body trembled.

The ropes around his body tightened.

An ethereal phantom was suddenly pulled out from his corpse, or at least, part of it.

The Soul of Hoolay was fighting back.

The ropes from within his circus shot out, dozens more as they grabbed onto his soul. The specter of the strongest Borisin clawed at them, bit at them. He managed to break many of them, but he was still fighting against the power of an Emanator.

“No!” the Soul of Hoolay roared. “I’m not convinced! This isn’t how it should be! I refuse to accept this!” The ropes began to drag him into the circus test, his soul body clawing at the ground as it dragged at him.

Despite being a phantasm, his soul was still able to affect the real world, leaving claw marks on the ground, a remarkable feat befitting of someone of his status. Even in death, he was a Pathstrider who walked further than the vast majority of everyone else in the universe.

Half of his body disappeared into the tent.

Sweat dripped down Allen’s brow as he supplied it with more energy. The wolf grabbed onto the edges, trying to pull free, trying to escape it.

“No!” He roared again as his grip slipped, his ghastly claws grasping at anything to hold onto, trying to find any kind of lifeline. "Y-you—!"

His body disappeared, leaving just his head as it was also slowly pulled into the darkness under his circus tent.

“-- Self-Annihilator!” Hoolay roared one last time before fully getting subsumed as a Silver Mask covered his face.

Allen didn’t react to the title thrown at him; he merely adjusted his mask on his face. But as Hoolay got absorbed into his circus, his body trembled. He held a hand up to his mouth as blood rose up from his throat and spilled out of his mouth and threw his fingers.

The pain was immediate.

The world around him began to spin.

Forcibly adding someone to his circus came with a cost. Forcibly adding someone of Hooley’s Strength, the cost was substantial. Even as an Emanator, his whole body felt like it was being torn apart.

There were rules, even for someone like an Emanator, things that one couldn’t touch lightly. Playing with dead souls was skirting upon certain taboos that were adhered to amidst universal concepts. What he was doing, it went against many fundamental principles of existence. 

And when a soul rejected him and he insisted anyways, there was a price to pay.

The sensation wasn’t only physical, as his own Path trembled. He felt the Cornerstone tremble as well as the Balance inside of him had swayed every so slightly. It felt like he was submerged inside a body of water, gasping for breath.

Blood seeped out of his eyes, and he looked around to see that the color in the room began to disappear.

Allen collapsed to the ground, the world around him spinning uncontrollably until he realized that below him, it wasn't a stone floor anymore but rippling water.

He looked up as his mind slowly began to settle, and there was no color here but black and white. His mind was a mess as he stood up and spun around to see where he was. It was an endless sea, but his arms fell to his side as he saw the ‘thing’ in the distance.

Like an eclipse.

A bright white light peeking around an impossible black sun.

The Horizon of Existence.

Allen stared at it.

Formless.

All-encompassing.

The End.

Another ripple reverberated through this endless sea. Allen turned around to find the source, and there was a woman standing there.

A woman in purple, with purple hair, and a massive sword at her side.

Allen felt his heart beating. Blood rushed through his body, and an ache in his heart appeared. Like an invisible void in his heart was crying out. It was an attraction—a physical sensation of pulling towards her.

Like the gravity of two massive stars touching upon one another.

In her eyes, he saw it too, the same sensation.

There were no words; there was only one thought that he knew she shared.

You have to die.

He couldn’t accept her existence. If she existed, he couldn’t exist. The absolute need that came from the primordial instinct of survival. 

She drew her massive sword. Her hair turned white, her right arm turned red, and red flowers began to bloom on her arm and beneath her feet.

Allen, as if all his mental inhibitions, his haze, and his pain had cleared up, drew his king. The King of Hearts, also called the Suicide King, is based on the picture. 

The woman across from him held her sword up, and without a sword, the two of them clashed.

A single card between his fingers slashed down against a sheathed blade. The resounding shockwave was enough to destroy a spaceship if it were unlucky enough to be caught within range.

Yet, within this silent, deathly place, there were barely ripples across the water beneath their feet. 

Both of them moved fast enough that to normal eyes, they had disappeared completely. Only the subsequent shockwaves from clashes indicate that there were people fighting.

Despite the instinctual need to kill her, to remove her existence, Allen was the most focused he had ever been; he was clear-minded; he was having no stray thoughts in this moment, as every word was dictated to the woman in front of him. 

It only took a few exchanges for him to understand the chasm between their skill levels. Even when he jumped backwards and threw a handful of cards at her, she seemed to turn into a blur of lightning, cutting through all of them and appearing in front of him with an overhead swing.

Allen was forced to use his King Card to block it, but it still sent him slamming into the water floor beneath. 

There was the faint sound of lightning behind him as she touched on the ground, her sheathed sword swinging at him again. Despite not being drawn, it carried with it the ability to cut through celestial bodies, sharper than most weapons in the universe.

With a flick of Jack, he teleported behind her, thrusting his king at her neck. She abandoned her attack and blocked it with ease, deflecting it away with another powerful shockwave, forcing Allen to slide backwards across the waters.

The Crowned Clown’s crown swayed gently from the wind created as she turned around to face him again, her expression unreadable.

Allen put a hand in front of his face and waved it to the side, out from behind him. Another clown stepped out, and another, and another.

There were now dozens of clowns surrounding her, all looking exactly the same as him.

They all charged at her even if she still didn’t show any reaction. She danced amidst the flurry of attacks with such graceful movements that Allen couldn't help but acknowledge his inferiority here again.

Her blade carried with it a flash of lightning as it cut through one clone, blocking a barrage of cards from her blind spot, then sweeping again to slash at another.

The Clones all charged her at the same time, and a reddish hue enveloped her sword; a single horizontal swing was her response. An infinite simple movement, but the black and white world was ever so slightly pulled back to reveal a bloody tear across the space.

Allen stood impassive as it approached him; his last clone stepped in front, and it flashed his Queen of Hearts.

The Queen Card was enlarged, and it turned into a massive black hole that devoured the slash and the imaginary energy contained within the attack.

The woman’s eyebrows raised for the first time, showing the faintest hint of surprise even as that last clone was torn apart.

She suddenly jerked her head to the side to narrowly dodge a King Card that passed by her head, sneakily thrown amidst the chaotic dispel of energies from the previous clash. Once more, there was the tiniest flicker of emotion as her eyes darted to the side, because Allen had teleported to catch the King card, grabbing it and redirecting it at her neck again.

She swung her sword up with another cataclysmic clash.

Allen was flung back, his feet and hands grasping at the water-like ground before he steadied himself. Likewise, the woman’s feet skidded across the previously still, endless ocean before she came to a stop.

A tiny bit of blood dripped down the side of her neck.

Not much more than a paper cut.

She wiped the blood away with another flicker in her eyes before she put a hand on the handle of her sword.

Allen knew she wasn’t using her full strength.

While he also wasn’t using his full strength, he understood he was outclassed. It took many tricks of his to keep up with simple swings of her sword, showing the difference in skill level between them.

The difference between an Emanator who is a couple years old and an Emanator who has walked an uncountable number of battlefields.

Blood fell from her eyes like tears.

Her right hand turned red, and deathly, crimson flowers began to bloom on it and around the water where she stood. Her hair turned completely white, and even her purple clothing lost all of its colors.

“I Wish to Mourn the Departed…”

Instantly, her deathly aura skyrocketed. An invisible ripple pushed against the water, creating waves at the horizon. The monochromatic world had a noticeable reaction for the first time. Suddenly, a hint of Red began to invade this realm of madness.

It pushed against the edges of emptiness as her blade freed itself from its confinement.

‘“Weeping like rain, to swell the crossing stream…”

Time and space came to a standstill.

The growing waves in the distance no longer moved; Allen found himself coming to a still as well as the reddish, bloody hue enveloped everything around them.

“...as the tides arrive, leading you back home.”

She slashed out.

A wave of energy followed, consuming, distorting, pulling everything with it together as it arced towards him. Even time and space seemed to bend, twist, and tear apart to accommodate it.

A single slash of a sword with enough power that it could cut through a star and keep going. 

Within Allen’s heart, he felt a throbbing.

He put his hand to his chest with great effort, and he felt the Astral Express Ticket still tucked away safely.

And a faint golden light bloomed around him, freeing him from the constrictions and the suppression of her massive power.

He raised his hands together in an equally pedantic motion, her simple swing that could cleave through existence, and his response to it.

A single clap.

[White Applause]

The clap that ends a show, that signals the curtain call.

It sounded outwards as the slash came at him and dispersed it around his person. A slash that could sunder stars in the night sky had left no mark on him. The corrosive force behind it barely tussled his hair.

The woman stood there evaluating him with newfound interest.

Allen met her gaze, and he produced the King of Heart in his hand again, but it was different this time. His King Card wasn’t simply a better card for throwing or using as a sharp edge. 

Flames engulfed it as it burned away, and something else appeared in his hand.

The sword pieces used in the creation of his relic were fully reforged.

Surtr Muspellsverd, The God Slaying Sword.

Enhanced by the power of an Aeon.

However, the flames that danced around it were not red. They took on a goldish hue, making the woman tilt her head in surprise and look at them curiously.

Her reddish aura spread out across the space between them, pushing back the realm they found themselves in.

His own flames spread out as well, their goldish hue meeting her red and clashing at the center.

Red and gold became intertwined, creating a divide that separated existence into two domains. Allen was by no means a swordsman; he had no training, and he had no skill in the art. But as an Emanator, he had speed, reactions, and strength. So even if he was swinging it around wildly, it was still significantly more powerful than using just the card from before.

Her sword was impossibly dangerous, a creation of sacrifice, of despair, and of emptiness. But even if his sword was inferior, it wasn’t far off in this state, and it evened the playing field to a degree.

For the first time, she smiled towards him while gripping her sword, and the reddish hue around the world pulsed in anticipation.

Likewise, the golden-tinged flames flickered and soared to match the enthusiasm. But just as that anticipation came, it disappeared in her eyes. It was like all of the sudden, she lost interest in the fight as she discarded her stance and relaxed her shoulders.

Allen, before he could hazard a guess, felt it.

There was a pulling sensation on him, dragging him backwards.

No.

No, no, no!

He raged in his heart and fought against it. He had to keep fighting; he needed to end her life, to remove her existence, because he couldn’t exist in the same universe as her! The profound feeling of rejection at her, from a fundamental level of his life that demanded she not continue to draw breath.

Reality was drawing him back, and it was like invisible hands he couldn’t shake off as the Horizon of Existence slowly flickered away from his eyes.

She mouthed words to him that he could barely read before disappearing.

‘May you find your worth in the waking world.'

He was thrown back to reality. It was like a haze was lifted from his mind as soon as she disappeared from his sight. The absolute feeling of attraction, of the gravitation towards her own emptiness, had slipped away.

He didn’t have a spare moment to contemplate it, because he was now inside Hoolay’s cage again.

The fresh corpse was still on the ground, but unfortunately, he wasn’t alone.

Members of the Ten-Lords Commission were all standing around, investigating the scene just as he reappeared.

They, of course, stopped what they were doing and stared at him in that brief moment of incredulity.

"...This isn’t what it looks like.” He quickly jumped over a guard that tried to grab at him and ran out the door, thankful that he was still donned in his cowl.

Dozens of people chased after him; they seemed rather angry.

It might have had something to do with him taking out and honking a very obnoxious horn as he ran away.

@***@

A/N

Allen nearly slips to Nihility a few times, then finds himself in the Horizon of Existence after forcibly converting Hoolay to his Circus. To explain the reaction, self-annihilators basically have a black hole inside themselves as they pull everything and everyone around them into Nihility. It’s why self-annihilators are not accepted by anyone and are despised everywhere. So, you have two massive Black Holes appearing side-by-side; there is an absolute need to destroy the other because otherwise, you would be consumed by them.