Evolution Chapter 28 Part II: Lost Violent Souls
Author: frkmgnt1
Title: Evolution
Chapter 28: Lost Violent Souls
Word Count for chapter ~12,500
Word Count for Story: ~225,000
This is a story about the evolution of the character Lightning throughout Final Fantasy XIII. There is AU in this story, but it is grounded in canon. There are no pairings, although you can infer what you will (I am not opposed to someone seeing one thing or other in the tale.)
Overall rating is M for violence and gore. As there are no pairings, there is no sex. Sorry about that. Maybe next time.
Something pulls her, calls to her. She hears voices in the darkness. Whispers around her, inside her. Familiar voices, strange voices.
She follows them into sleep, into corridors, through the locked doors. Through the dark miasma into the pitch black room.
Into another world, a dream world, full of shadow and light. A black and white world of magic and despair.
Follows them to the feet of the ancient occupants of Taejin's Tower, where they drop her like a wet ragdoll stitched together with blood and tissue...
She twists on a precipice. She sways to and fro in an unfelt breeze. She dreams...
She wants to stay and float and drift, but-
-There's an itch she can't reach nagging at her, irritating her. She twitches to reach it but can't. It keeps getting worse as she goes. She can't even figure out where it is; she just knows there's a nuisance driving her berserk. Her fingers tingle, her lips burn. Her ears are ringing. She shakes her head, blinks, opens her eyes and waits for something to make sense again.
It takes a moment for her mind to pair the shapes and textures she sees with the correct names and designations. It's possibly the most terrifying moment of her life as she stands clueless , staring at nameless things, knowing that she should know what they are but unable to place them. The circuit finally connects and the names of everything match up with the objects in her view. Stone. Door. Wall. Dark. It's another minute before the fear abates.
The next second, she realizes that she is not where she should be.
She glances around with far more caution than usual.
She has no idea where she is at all. She has no idea how she got here.
/whispers enticing, drawing her forward, driving her onward/
She shivers and gropes for her weapon, terrified that she's lost it in her latest lapse. Her fingers close around the hilt and she sighs and draws the weapon . Just holding it makes her feel better-stronger-and she turns to confront her new challenge.
The room is dark, and feels much smaller than it looks. She knows the feeling makes no sense, but she no longer expects her feelings to be based in any sort of logic. Her instincts are far sharper than her reason by now; though her senses all tell her she is alone in this strange, she knows with every cell in her body that she is not.
Something is watching her.
"Who's there?" She asks the room. Silence answers her and she wonders if she's finally crossed over into complete lunacy.
"Who's there?" she shouts, and this time the room shouts back in triplicate.
"DEFILER-"
"TRAITOR-"
"DESTROYER"
The sound drives her to her knees , clogs her ears and sets them screaming like sirens. She feels tears pour from her eyes, tastes blood pouring from her nose. She covers both ears with her hands, uncaring that she kneels on the ground, disarmed by nothing more than words.
"ABOMINATION" the three voices shout at once, sounds blurring and overlapping so violently she can practically see the shockwaves.
"Why have you come, traitor?" one voice asks. She swallows to try and unblock her ears, pulls her hands away. She hears whispers between the fired questions and demands. "Have you come to face judgment?"
/it bleeds/
"Who is your master?"
/it reeks/
"ANSWER!" The word is like a club to the head. It makes her dizzy, and blurry, and very nearly steals all consciousness.
/it offends/
"Who set you on this path?" She feels hands grabbing at her in the darkness. Fingers pinch, and claws scratch. She feels mouths nipping at her, biting her. Tearing at her flesh with razor fangs. She tries to escape but she cannot move. She's pinned, bound. Held by her limbs by binds that pull slowly at her, threatening to quarter her. "Answer! Who set you on this path? Who sent you to the Tower?"
"I set myself on this path!" She tries to shout. Perhaps she succeeds but the world is gray and she is deaf. Her body is a throbbing wound. Her mind is peeling apart like an onion. She can't hear herself over the din.
"LieLiesLyingLIAR"
"Speak!" Something disengages from the wall and approaches her. She stares up at the stone monstrosity and tastes fresh blood pour from her nose over her lips, into her mouth, over her tongue. "Branded-Who-You are-Why- Branded-Here-Now-Abomination!"
The words are like an apple corer through her head; she feels the blood pouring from her nose, her head, her brain. She has no idea what the voices are asking, what information they are demanding. The intense agony makes problem solving impossible.
"Who is your master, slave?"
That one she understands enough to feel outraged.
"I have no master," she declares.
"You are branded," the three voices speak. "You are cattle. You are property-without will." She shakes her head, watches blood pour onto the floor beneath her. It feels like they've driven their fingers into her brain by poking through the roof of her mouth. There's a feeling of wriggling and squirming, burrowing and pulling as if they are trying to pull the contents of her body out through her mouth. "You are fal'Cie slave!"
She is incensed is what she is. She couples that anger with her pride and pulls herself to her feet. She doesn't like being accused and accosted, prodded and poked. She is tired of creatures with more power trying to grind her into the dirt.
/Outcast/
/Blight/
/Pestilence/
"You are a desecration of the song."
"Disharmonious, cacophonous in our ears."
"A canker on all creation."
The voices overlap, intonation even and matter of fact as they berate her.
"I didn't choose to be a l'Cie," she declares, realizing how childish it sounds. She doesn't owe these things any explanation. Her hand aches for her weapon. She wants to drive her Edged Carbine into the stone before her, send enough magic through the blade to turn them into dust.
The whispers overlap and crescendo.
/No purpose/
/No meaning/
/No matter/
"It was Anima who branded me," she says over the whispering and they cease. "If that's what you bastards are asking."
"Anima," one voice whispers while another says, "Traitor."
"Anima betrayed Her,
betrayed us,
betrayed the design."
They speak to her and at her. Her head spins from their words. She needs to understand what they mean. How is Anima a traitor; who did it betray? She has suspicions but she needs confirmation. She can't afford to be wrong now. She's not going to get a second chance at this one.
"We destroyed Anima for branding us. We destroyed your traitor." The voices whisper and she peers into the darkness. She's taking a big chance admitting to killing a fal'Cie. She doesn't know what she faces, but she knows it, or they, or whatever-the-hell, can kill her. The knowledge annoys her. The throbbing pain behind her eyes tells her that they can do it without touching her. She's tired of threats; sick of watching her step. She longs to attack and destroy.
She wonders if that desire is hers, or if it belongs to the monster she is becoming. She decides it really doesn't matter as she says, "We wish to break our chains and fight. We came here seeking a path to freedom."
"Branded," a voice supplies unhelpfully. "No freedom but death for abominations. You are unclean and unintended."
The next says, "You have no place in this world and no place in the next. You are doomed and forever hidden from Her sight."
The final one says, "It is why you are cursed to eternity as crystal, and monster and rock. No peace for l'Cie."
/Damned/
/Cursed/
/Condemned/
Despite her complete lack of surprise, Lightning is devastated. All the stories of 'eternal life' as a crystal are so much garbage. Serah is not 'at peace.' She is like a bug trapped in amber, held for eternity in a crystal shell because there is no place for her in the afterlife. It is as Lightning always suspected. It is her worst fear materialized and confirmed. And if she can't find a solution, the same fate awaits the rest of her friends-her family. She rubs her forehead, presses her thumb and forefinger into her eyes. She takes two seconds to feel the disappointment before she shoves it aside and packs it away.
She can't give up hope yet. As long as she's in control of herself, she will search for a way to reverse this curse and fix what these soulless things have done to them all.
"Okay," she says, unsure if she's really conceding or just placating the angry gods around her. "But...we must find a way to stop Barthandelus."
"BARTHANDELUS!" She barely feels the pain of the shout through her numb horror. She does feel the gush of the next gout of blood.
/Deceiver/
/Defiler/
/Debaser/
"Barthandelus seeks to destroy Cocoon. To make a sacrifice of all the humans in Cocoon." There's more whispering but she shouts right over it. "My friends and I have come to Pulse to find a way to stop him, but we don't know how."
/How?/
/Know?/
/A Way?/
"We're running out of time," she says and touches her brand. She feels the power there, senses Odin shifting and waking wherever it sleeps. She wonders what would happen if she called to the Eidolon. She wonders if it would help her, or if these ancient gods would hold sway. She has no real knowledge of the Eidolons and their connections to the l'Cie; she's not certain that Odin's loyalty to her would hold in the face of ancient power. She decides that she doesn't want to find out, so she does her best to quell the need for aid. She feels the Eidolon's gaze wander from her and she relaxes.
She waits for a response for an eternity.
She has the sudden irrational urge to tap her foot and make 'hurry up' gestures with her hands.
"Time," is all that is said before silence falls again.
The silence sucks all the air from the room. Lightning holds her breath and waits for a judgment and sentence.
"Time is an enemy."
"Fear is a catalyst"
"Terror transforms through time..."
"What?"
"It doesn't understand."
"It never understands."
"Hear, it does, but it listens not."
"I'm listening but you aren't saying anything!" She shouts.
"Insolent."
"Impudent."
"Innocent," the final one declares and follows up with, "Let not your fears control you, or give life to them you will. Rewrite your flesh and bone and blood..."
The words make no sense. She shakes her head but the first voice declares, "It doesn't understand."
"Get it gone," the second says as the third declares, "It will understand. Clever and wily it is. Time is all it needs."
"Time it does not have," the second voice argues.
"That's what I said," Lightning shouts and silence falls over the room again. She waits for punishment with a defiant heart.
Screw these things!
"Ragnarok," they say and the white noise of whispers continues. She waits for more information but it seems as if none is forthcoming.
"I don't understand," she says and the subtle whispers get louder, angrier. She gets angry right back and yells over the rising din. "Ragnarok is going to destroy Cocoon!"
Foolish, the first says.
Ignorant, the second says.
Child, the third declares.
"Ragnarok is Her gift to humans." The answer makes no sense. She shakes her head. They continue, "Ragnarok, the Doom."
"Ragnarok. Destroyer."
"Ragnarok. The bane of fal'Cie. The one thing they can never control. Ragnarok alone is salvation."
"But..."
"No QUESTIONS!"
"...BECOMING RAGNAROK IS MY FOCUS," she shouts right back at them. "Summoning Ragnarok is Barthandelus's goal. He wants Ragnarok to destroy Cocoon."
More silence.
/Clever, Clever/
/Devious/
/Wicked Barthandelus/
"Unchanging is Barthandelus. Same are the tricks he plays on humans," says the one before her.
"Too short are your lives. Humans..." another whispers.
"Too brief. Learn nothing from the past," the last one laments.
"We don't know anything about what's happened in the past!" she argues. "There are no people left on this world..."
/extinction/
/destruction/
/desolation/
"...And on Cocoon..."
Hubris and blasphemy!
"On Cocoon everything we've been told are lies. We're here for answers. If you're against Barthandelus, won't you help us?"
/Unnatural/
/Offensive/
/Intriguing.../
The last word hangs and twists; Lightning wonders if that was the final word on the matter, if she just wasted her breath and time trying to reason with these beings.
"Agreed."
She hears an echoing click and light pours into the room. Her eyes water and she squints.
"Seek your answers in the forbidden places..."
"Go forever from our sight, outcast thing..."
"May the Goddess guide you in your journey, and grant you the wisdom to let go your fear."
Lightning doesn't need any more invitation to take her leave. She finds these...things as offensive as they find her. She walks toward the unknown eagerly.
Lightning feels dizzy and ill as she walks toward the light. Her battle with the three strange statues has left her battered without battle. She wants nothing more than to put space between herself and the power in the dark room. She steps up to the threshold, turns back and sees the three bizarre statues looming in the room behind her. Their faces are unchanging, but the disapproval and disgust rolls off them in waves. She looks at her hands and sees the blood coating them and shakes her head.
She feels as if she's drowning in a lake of her own blood.
She presses the door open, forces against centuries of dust and rust until the hinges scream and squeal and reveal the room beyond. The air is thick with must and Lightning coughs. She steps in, hears her footfalls echo in the vast room, watches dust motes twist and twirl in the slanted sunlight.
The room is huge and empty but for a single crystal in the center. The crystal scatters the light, sprinkles rainbows across the walls of the room like a disco ball. Lightning approaches it slowly, feels something heavy settle in her gut as she reaches it.
Reaches her.
It's a weeping woman, hunched on her knees for all eternity, the truest misery Lightning's ever seen captured in ironic beauty. Lightning kneels before her, and stares. There's something familiar about her, though Lightning's never seen her before.
Except...
Lightning reaches out and touches the crystal and drowns.
She stares at Cocoon shining overhead like a shimmering gem in the sky. She never feared the strange orb, never cast aspersions at it, or suspicions towards it. It was a gift from the gods, given to the loyal and faithful, and it was not the place of any human to question the will of the gods.
When the plagues came she did her best to keep control. It was her duty in her husband's absence to keep the people calm. But illness bred death; and death brought more illness in a vicious cycle. Chaos was unavoidable as food was infected, as bodies were burned. It was total anarchy in an unbelievably short time, and soon the mobs were burning people before they died.
Preemptive strikes, they said.
It is a nice euphemism for cold-blooded murder. It makes the screams of the dying and smells of burning flesh almost bearable.
Almost...
When the old man comes to her whispering of vengeance, laying blame for all the deaths of all her people at the feet of Cocoon and offers her a chance to redress the wrongs done, she accepts without hesitation. He smells of flowers and sanctity. The air tastes clean around him for the first time in weeks. She kisses his hands and accepts his offer to become vengeance incarnate.
The pain of the branding is nothing compared to the pain of her people. Her husband is gone. Her home is burned. Her city is a charred ruin. She has nothing left but the child within her and she refuses to bring it into a dying world. The old man offers her the opportunity to be a peace bringer.
There's a peace that can only be found only on the other side of war, the wizened man whispers with a silver tongue and the words make a demented sort of sense. This is only the beginning. Do you want to see their next move?
She is horrified at the prospect.
Become. She doesn't understand the instruction, but she can feel a shifting taking place beneath her skin. You must sacrifice to prove your worth.
Sacrifice? But she has nothing. Everything she's ever had is turned to ash. The old man speaks as if he can read her mind. Really? He lays his hands over her round belly and her child kicks hard.
"No!" she refuses.
Peace is not worth one life? Perhaps the cruel words are logical but logic holds no sway over a mother. She would sacrifice the world for her child if need be, but never the other way.
Become, and perhaps he'll live to draw his first breath. Refuse and he'll rot inside your decaying body. The old man's kind face transforms into something she can't face. There are things squirming beneath his flesh now. She's seen movement like this in the bloated corpses laying about her rotting city. He smiles and his teeth are jagged and pointed, his mouth squirming with insects. She gasps and smells the fetid rot of him. The reality of his stench. She screams, and continues screaming when he lays his bony hand over her brand.
The pain is exquisite. It's like being turned inside out and when she wakes on the floor she feels changed. Her body is heavy, lethargic. She lifts her hands and sees the fingers of a monster before her, gray and clawed.
Come child, the old man says, and lifts her to her grotesque feet. A trifle for salvation. He lifts her chin towards the sky, directs it towards the enemy overhead.
She feels the changes rattling through her again, snapping her tendons like rubber bands and remaking her from the elements. The life that she once felt growing nestled inside her is gone. In its place is a burning hatred and need to destroy like she's never felt before. She screams, and thrashes, feels things crumble around her and is satisfied, hears screaming and is glad.
She is Death, and she will spread her gift across the world.
"SIS!" Snow shouts into her face. She jerks away from the sound. "Sis?" he whispers. She looks around to get her bearings, feels the hard floor beneath her and Snow's big hands cupping her face. She reaches up in a sloppy uncoordinated manner to brush him off, but he holds fast, and wipes his thumb across her cheek.
"You back?"
Is she? There's a sharp pain pressing behind her eyes with an insistent throb, pressing against the near visible fracture lines in her psyche to shatter her again. She feels something crawling beneath her skin, chewing away at her mind piece by piece.
She feels the bubbling in her blood, the vibrations in her muscles. She feels the grief like acid eroding what's left of her strength.
But...she is back. She is Lightning. She is not this ruined, weeping woman, no matter how much of her believes it.
/No parents/
No matter how broken she feels.
/No sister/
The hole through her heart is hers, not the crystal's.
/No time. No amends. No chance./
The hopelessness and sinking depression both belong to her.
"Yeah," she assures him. "I'm...here." Snow stares into her eyes for a long moment before giving her a dim smile.
"Yeah. Okay, Sis." Snow blows out a shaky breath and pulls her upright. She expects him to leave her sitting, but he lifts her all the way up until she's on her feet again. Her vision fogs and fuzzes, and the niggling behind her right eye turns into a spear before everything evens out. Snow holds onto her arms, thumbs pressing into her biceps as he peers into her eyes. She knows she should shake him off, but she's still reeling from the triple shock of her blackout, her encounter with the strange statues and then her trip through the crystal's past. "You know, Sis, you need to stop touching these damn crystals. You were on the floor staring into nothing when I found you."
Not really nothing. She was staring into the past.
"And don't think we're not having a conversation about you wandering off." She shrugs and shakes Snow off. "So, uh...what did it show you?"
She can tell that he doesn't believe she'll answer him. She almost doesn't. "It showed me what happened to this tower."
"What was that?"
"Barthandelus. He tricked her," Lightning gestures at the weeping woman "into trying to destroy Cocoon."
"Good old Bart," Snow quips with a snarl. "Gotta hand it to him...at least he's consistent."
Fang laughs from behind Snow, startling the both of them. "He is at that, Hero." Fang looks at Lightning and says, "Any great revelations then?"
Lightning looks around and says. "No."
"Ah. Why am I not surprised?" There's banked anger in Fang's tone; her whole aura is one of barely contained intent.
Things are going to get ugly and Lightning really isn't up for it.
Snow shakes his head. "Well, I'm going to go...do something else," he says and beats a hasty retreat.
"Coward," Fang snipes but there's no real malice behind it. Snow flips her off on his way out the door and Lightning snorts. Fang shakes her head and says, "I think the Hero is getting smarter."
"Or he's just sick of all the bickering."
"Isn't that what I said?" Fang asks and takes a few steps into the room. "How'd you get in here anyway?"
Lightning barely hears the question as she stares at the crystal's despondent features. The strange woman's grief has only redoubled her own. "I know her."
"I really kinda doubt that," Fang says. "This crystal's been here forever."
"Forever?"
"For as long as anyone remembers. There's no written history before that crystal." Fang steps close to her. "You know, I've never actually seen her before. Part of me thought she was just a myth. She's the Weeping Woman." Fang says. "There are only two. Crying crystals trapped forever in their sadness."
"Two?"
"One here, and another just outside the Paddrean Archeopolis." Fang looks at Lightning. "I've never seen either of them." Lightning thinks of Serah's crystal tear and realizes that her sister is now the third weeping woman in existence. "The Tower never let anyone into any of these rooms before. It guess it was guarding her."
"It was. And It still does," Lightning says and nods to the statues that granted her access. Fang peers over her shoulder.
"Those uglies look nasty," Fang says with a frown. "How'd you get past them?"
Lightning thinks about the pain in her head, the blood pouring from her nose. The feeling of being turned inside out by fingers in her gray matter. The feeling of being pinched, scratched, bitten, devoured. She's not going to be ready to talk about any of that until two weeks after hell freezes over. "Would you believe I dazzled them with my charm?"
"Absolutely not." Lightning shrugs.
"Me neither. But something I said got me in here."
"Bully for you." Fang does a slow circle around the crystal. "What exactly did you expect to learn from her anyway? I mean, it's a crystal..."
"Do you know the story?" Lightning asks.
"No one knows the story," Fang declares more forcefully than necessary. "I just told you! There's no history older than this statue."
"Well, I know it." Fang reacts to that one and Lightning presses her luck. It's time they had this talk. Passed time, most likely. "I think you do too. Or you did."
"I'm not up for games today." Fang puts her hands on her hips. "What's that mean?"
"Do you remember anything? About...before." The non sequitur seems to aggravate Fang more than anything else. "Your last time as a l'Cie, I mean."
"You actually asking me if I remember being Ragnarok then?" Fang snaps. "I was wondering if you were going to figure it out, and if you had, if you'd have the stones to ask me."
Lightning's not sure what approach to take. Right now, she's full of one part sadness and two parts rage. She looks at Fang and realizes that the woman is baiting her. She wants to escalate to violence. Well too bad. Lightning remains calm and on point. "You remember?"
"No, I don't bloody well remember!" Fang cracks, rakes her fingers through hair as she raves. "I've been over it a thousand times and I don't remember a damn thing. But I had it out with Vanille back in Mah'Habara. She didn't tell me, but since her stupid Eidolon decided to try to kill us all, I'm assuming I was on the right track."
Ah! And that explains the mystery of why the fifty armed nightmare appeared in that miserable cavern to dump more rocks on their already cracked heads.
"Well, I know you were," Lightning declares and waits for the fallout.
"Wanna explain that statement?" Fang is deceptively calm. Lightning feels the hairs on her body stand on end.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Whatever the hell that means. She considers where to start, decides that every point in the story is lousy.
"I have a theory about why you can't remember anything."
"Go on, then. I am all ears, as they say." Fang leans against the wall in a damn good impression of unaffected posture. She even crosses her arms over her chest and one foot over the other to complete the pose.
Lightning isn't fooled.
"I think that you can't remember because you have to make a sacrifice in order to complete the transformation." Fang looks unimpressed and a bit confused, and Lightning sighs. "It's like..." what's it really like? "Like dues of some sort. You have to pay in order to join the club."
"And you think I paid with what? My worst memories? Memories of becoming a monster? That sounds great, not like a sacrifice!"
"Really? You feel great with a big giant hole in your memories?" Lightning asks, patience disappearing like water through a sieve. Fang tenses and Lightning can't seem to care. "And how do you know it's your 'worst' memories. Maybe you had the solution all along, but you had to give it up to finally achieve," she flails for the explanation. "whatever."
"Achieve whatever."
Lightning feels her face get hot and points at the weeping woman's crystal. "This woman had to give up her unborn child to become Ragnarok."
Fang goes white as marble, gapes like a beached fish before whispering: "You can't know that..."
"I do know it. I saw it when I touched the crystal. And I've dreamed of it." Lightning turns and stares at her, remembers her long ago dream clearly. "She was one of the first. Maybe she was the first, I don't know."
"That's right! You don't know." Pale cheeks bloom red blossoms high up: rage and fear written in blood across her face.
/Terror transforms through time...rewrite your flesh and bone and blood/
"I know you were being chased and hunted." Lightning turns and watches Fang blanch again. "I know that terrible things happened..."
"Shut up!" Fang goes from white back to scarlet, and Lightning wonders if there are consequences to paling and flushing so rapidly. She doesn't really want to know.
"Alright," Lightning agrees. It was never her intention to tell Fang anyway. "My point is, I don't think these things are just memories. I think they're part of Ragnarok."
"So..." Fang looks at her as if seeing her for the first time. "...and what? So are you? Is that what you're saying?"
"Not yet. But I think I hear it now." Whispers and voices drawing her along dark hallways, drawing her into dangerous places. The admission is terrible, but less so than she expected it to be. "I think I feel it now."
"Maybe it's just the transformation." Fang says and flinches. "I mean..."
"It could be." But it isn't. Lightning knows it isn't.
"Why are you so bleeding calm about this?" Fang shouts.
"Because I'm not afraid."
/Let not your fears control you, or give life to them you will/
"Not anymore." Not right now anyway. If Fang checks again in ten minutes, Lightning might be terrified, but standing here and looking at this poor broken woman, she isn't afraid. She's just weary.
She's resigned.
"Alright, so say you're right. What do you think I actually gave up?" Lightning sighs.
"I think they demanded Vanille." Lightning closes her eyes and can still hear it and smell it. Can still see the rope over the hanging branch. She shivers.
"Yeah, well I would never sacrifice Vanille," Fang says.
"I know it." She remembers the rage. She can still feel her body twisting and contorting, tendons and muscles shredding like overcooked meat under the strain of transformation.
"So what are you saying then?" Fang eyes her suspiciously.
Good question.
"I'm just...I'm just saying be ready for what we find. Because we are going to find it." That really didn't make any sense, even to her. But Fang nods at her anyway.
"You didn't see anything else then?"
-Feet kicking in mid air for purchase, blood trailing down pale, bruised legs-
"No."
Fang sighs and nods. She casts one more look at the weeping woman and bows her head for a moment before turning away. "Right then. Are we done here? This statue is giving me the creeps."
"Sure," Lightning says and listens to Fang's hurried footsteps beat a retreat.
"By the way, your boy and Sazh managed to whip up something interesting while you were M.I.A." Lightning waits for more information, but Fang straddles the threshold looking uncomfortable as hell. "I'll wait for you out here, alright?"
Fang doesn't wait for acknowledgement before fading from sight. Lightning stares after her for a moment before turning back to face the weeping woman. She kneels before the crystal touches the hand again. I promise you he'll pay for what he did to you; for what he took from you.
As she turns and leaves the sad crystal to its eternal suffering she thinks she hears a familiar voice warn her: Be wary and swift. Your fears are the key. The devil's voice lulls even as it destroys.
Lightning glances back over her shoulder at the unchanging crystal, considers, before leaving the nameless, lost, violent soul behind forever.
Your fears are the key...
It seems as if she's doomed to find answers that make no sense.
TBC....
Chapter 28 is just 3 days shy of one year now. To anyone reading this, I am now switching back to DIDDTU and hope to conclude the story quick quick.