Eleanor stood at the edge of the firelight, onyx-hued eyes fixed on the dancing flames, though her mind was elsewhere. Her brown hair was pulled back in a tight knot, save for a few strands fluttering in the night breeze. She stood with arms crossed, her presence sharp—untouchable.
Elina sat nearby, legs tucked under her, her auburn hair catching streaks of amber from the firelight. She glanced up, amber eyes warm, but not naive.
"You're not really the type to hang around the fire," Elina said, patting the empty space beside her. "But you're welcome to."
"I didn't come here for warmth," Eleanor replied flatly. She didn't sit—she stood there like a statue carved from shadow.
Elina tilted her head. "Just wanted to see if the logs were burning properly?" she teased lightly.
Eleanor didn't respond. Her gaze remained fixed on the flames, her silence heavy.
After a beat, Elina tried again. "How's Vergil? He looked like he hadn't slept in days."
"He's functional," Eleanor said coldly.
Elina blinked. "You two seem close."
"We're not."
"But you work well together."
"That doesn't mean anything. We use each other. That's it. His words, not mine."
Elina offered a small smile, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "He said that?"
Eleanor's expression hardened. "If he wants to be friends, he can say it himself. Otherwise, it's just air."
Elina was quiet for a moment, staring into the fire. Then she said softly, "I don't think he knows how."
Eleanor scoffed.
"No, really," Elina continued. "People like him… they move carefully. Quiet steps. Eyes always watching. When they speak, it's after calculating every word. Not because they're liars—but because they're afraid the wrong sentence might make people leave."
"Fear doesn't excuse weakness," Eleanor replied, voice like frost. "If he wants something, he should act on it. If he doesn't, he shouldn't expect others to fill in the blanks."
Elina nodded slowly. "Maybe. But not everyone learns how to ask. Some people were never taught how."
Eleanor's eyes narrowed. "Then they stay alone. It's not my problem."
The fire popped. For a while, neither of them spoke.
Then Elina said, "I wasn't born in the capital like most people assume. I grew up near the northern border. Cold winters, small towns. My aunt raised me—she worked as a scribe for the local guild branch. Taught me how to read contracts before I learned how to ride."
Eleanor gave no indication she was listening, but Elina went on.
"I started helping her by the time I was ten. Filing reports, checking bounty records. When she got sick, I took over everything. I didn't really have a choice."
A faint breeze carried the smell of burning wood.
"By seventeen, I moved to a bigger town. Became a guild receptionist officially. I wasn't some bright-eyed girl chasing adventure—I was just trying to keep things running. Keep people safe, even if it was from behind a desk."
"And?" Eleanor said, finally looking at her. "Why tell me all this?"
Elina's gaze didn't waver. "Because I've seen all kinds walk through those guild doors. Warriors, killers, cowards, heroes. People hiding their pain in noise. Others in silence. Vergil's not the first cold one I've met."
Eleanor's brow tensed slightly.
"You don't open up. Neither does he. But you're not the same. You push people away because you don't care. He does it because he does."
Eleanor's voice was quiet but sharp. "Don't pretend to understand me."
"I'm not," Elina said simply. "Just talking to the fire. If you're listening, that's your choice."
The two sat in the crackling silence—Elina calm, Eleanor unreadable. But something lingered between them. Not connection. Not warmth.
Elina chucked before saying "About the academy, I still dont know yet, but I'll tell you my answer tommorow"
Eleanor replied nonchalantly "Whatever suits you"
Recognition.
Eleanor eventually turned and walked away.
But Elina said something "Make sure to talk to Vergil"
She did not replyas her silhouette swallowed by the dark. Her arms remained folded. Her expression remained hard.
But for just a moment, her steps slowed.
She would never admit it.
But part of her had listened.
On her way back to the carriage, the night wrapped around Eleanor like a shroud—silent and still, save for the soft crunch of grass beneath her boots. The fire's glow faded behind her, but its warmth lingered faintly on her skin. A breeze swept past, brushing stray strands of brown hair across her cheek. With a quiet huff of irritation, she tucked them behind her ear.
As she approached the shadowed silhouette of the carriage, her gaze caught movement by a nearby tree. She paused.
There, partially illuminated by the moonlight, sat Vergil—leaning against the base of the trunk, a jug loosely cradled in his hand. His brown hair was tousled, the faintest shimmer of moonlight catching the edge of his jaw. The bottle tilted slightly in his grip as he took another sip, slow and deliberate, but not savoring. More like… dulling.
Eleanor's brows furrowed, her onyx eyes narrowing.
Drinking?
Him?
Vergil—the aloof-coldhearted man, always composed, always sharp—didn't strike her as the type to let even a drop of alcohol pass his lips. His mind was his weapon, after all. And dulling it, even slightly, would be a betrayal of the control he so clearly worshipped.
She stood in silence, observing. The way his shoulders sagged just a little more than usual. The way he stared at the bottle between drinks—not with pleasure, but with thought. Quiet. Isolated.
"Of all people…" she muttered under her breath, her voice laced with faint, biting amusement.
A smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. Cold, almost mocking.
"So, Vergil's an underage drinker after all."
She didn't say it loud enough for him to hear—just enough for the wind to carry it nowhere.
With a flick of her fingers, she brushed the last strand of hair from her face, returning her expression to its usual ice.
She didn't approach him. Didn't speak further. There was no reason to. He'd chosen solitude, and she would grant it—just as she expected him to do for her.
But as she turned and walked towards the carriage, a sudden thud sound came from behind her. She turned around once kore and saw Vergil was collapsed on the ground. He was completely drunk.
She put him over him and took him to tge carriage and layed him down before sleeping.
---
In the still silence of the carriage, the moonlight gently pooled through the narrow slit of the window, casting a faint silver glow across Vergil's sleeping form. Eleanor, still lying quietly, hadn't noticed it yet—the shift, the disturbance, the stirring.
It began subtly. Vergil's fingers twitched. His breath caught. And then—
A faint red glow started leaking from beneath his closed eyelid. The hum of something ancient… something wrong vibrated in the still air.
His eye twitched—once, then again, more violently. A pulse of demonic energy rippled through his veins, subtle but unmistakable. His body convulsed once beneath the blanket, and then—
The eye opened.
It forced itself open, like something was tearing it from within.
His brown iris fractured—splintering like shattering glass—as veins of crimson carved through the sclera. The pupil morphed into a narrow vertical black slit, sharp as a blade and glowing like molten steel. The iris bled outward, forming concentric rings of brilliant red light, layered like ancient symbols. Each ring pulsed—throbbed—with living energy, rotating ever so slightly, out of sync with reality.
The eye looked almost alive—a cursed, divine engine. Its glow was hypnotic, resembling an infernal eclipse, crackling with red embers like in the image you'd shared. The energy wasn't just leaking—it was calling.
Vergil's jaw clenched. A groan tore from his throat.
Suddenly—
[Foresight has been activated]
The vision crashed into him like a blade to the mind.
He couldn't scream.
Scarlet images, fragmented and skipping like an ancient film reel, played before his mind. Except they were wrong. Wrong in their movement. Wrong in their silence. The world played in a ghostly red, each frame shaking violently like it was trying to escape his thoughts.
The images came in flashes—
—A four-legged beast, tainted in scarlet, its body misshapen and pulsing, as if it had once been human. Its gaping maw dripped with black ichor, and its eyes were blind, yet aware.
—A man, bloodied and limping, stumbling through ash and fire. reaching a cliffside. A waterfall of blood crashed down beside him. He tried to jump, desperation in his soul—but his legs wouldn't move.
—Suddenly, a hand wrapped around his throat, yanking him backward. A man, face shrouded in static, choked him with one hand, lifting him from the ground as he thrashed. The victim's screams were silent, his eyes bulging in fear.
And then—
Nothing.
The visions cut. Abruptly. Like someone had severed the thread—
Like something knew he was watching, and chose to blind him.
Vergil's body snapped upright.
He gasped, nearly choking on his breath. Sweat poured down his face, matting his hair. His hands clutched his head, knuckles white. The pain was searing, like someone had branded his very mind. His breath came in shallow, rapid bursts.
He looked around frantically. His voice was hoarse.
"Who… who was that?"
No answer. Only Elina's soft breathing. Eleanor, asleep—unaware.
Vergil's hands trembled. He looked down at them as if they were foreign.
"It's missing," he whispered. "Parts of it. Why… why was it missing?"
He stood, stumbling forward in the cramped space. His eye—still glowing faintly—darted around, searching for something unseen.
"What are you hiding from me?" he whispered to the dark. "What don't you want me to see…?"
His fingers dug into the edge of the carriage seat, nails biting into the fabric.
"Looks like I need a plan. But what happened after?"
Vergil made a mental note of the details in his head 'Definitely on this trip. Next, the time it took place was between, morning and noon, since it was bright. One 4 legged beast and one man.'
Vergils head ached again. His head was overheated
But he couldn't remember the end.
Or the beginning.
Only the terror in the middle.
He gripped the side of his head, groaning again as another wave of pain surged. The eye dimmed slowly… but the paranoia remained.
"The drawback of this skill, is on another level." Vergil muttered his breath heavy before collapsing.
The next day kicked in.
The light of dawn filtered through the carriage's worn curtains, painting soft gold across the wooden interior. The road beneath still rumbled—a steady, rhythmic thump as the wheels rolled ever onward toward the capital.
But inside the carriage, silence had settled like a thick fog.
Eleanor and Elina sat side by side, eyes locked on the third passenger across from them.
Vergil.
His face was flushed, drenched in a layer of cold sweat that clung to his skin like a second layer. His chest rose and fell rapidly, not with panic—but with exhaustion. Pure, consuming exhaustion. The kind that dug into your marrow and tried to pull you under.
His brown eyes were open, but they were glassy—unfocused. There was no recognition in them. No clarity. Just the vacant gaze of someone who hadn't slept… and couldn't dream even if he did.
He sat motionless, but his hands trembled—fingers twitching slightly, as though grasping for something that wasn't there. His body was upright only because the corner of the carriage seat supported him.
Elina leaned forward first, her voice gentle but uncertain.
"…Vergil?"
No response. Not even a blink.
His lips parted slightly, breath shallow. A few beads of sweat rolled down his chin and dripped to the wooden floor below. His skin was growing paler by the second.
Then—
[SYSTEM WARNING]
[User has suffered a severe backlash from 'Foresight'.]
But the chime fell on deaf ears.
Vergil didn't even flinch.
The warning echoed uselessly in his mind, like a scream in a collapsing tunnel. He was too far gone to notice. His thoughts weren't even thoughts anymore—they were fragments, jumbled words, broken symbols, and whispers that didn't belong to him.
A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye made him jerk slightly. He didn't know what it was.
He couldn't tell anymore.
"Leave me alone.," he mumbled under his breath. "I just need some sleep."
His voice was raw—strained like someone who hadn't spoken in years. But Eleanor caught it. And though she said nothing at first, her eyes narrowed.
"Vergil," she said again, colder this time. "You need to get a grip."
Still no response.
Eleanor exhaled sharply through her nose. "You're sweating like a dying dog and talking to yourself. Are you cursed?"
"I don't think it's a curse," Elina said softly, glancing between them. "He looked fine last night. Something happened. Something bad."
"I can see that," Eleanor snapped. "But wasting time sitting here waiting for him to collapse isn't going to help."
"He already is—" Elina's voice caught.
Vergil's breath hitched.
His muscles spasmed.
His vision twisted violently—red spirals and echoing screams surged forward from the corners of his perception. He tried to speak, but the words caught in his throat like broken glass. His head dropped forward suddenly, eyes fluttering as if something were pulling him downward.
"He's not well!" Elina cried, now kneeling in front of him. "Vergil—! Hey, stay with me!"
She reached out, placing a hand on his forehead.
Burning.
It was like touching iron fresh from the forge. "He's burning up," she said urgently. "We need to—"
But it was already too late.
Vergil's body gave out.
His arms fell limp at his sides, and he collapsed forward, his head hitting Elina's shoulder as he fell unconscious.
Elina caught him with a small gasp, steadying him against her chest. His weight was heavier than expected. His breath came in weak bursts.
"…He's out cold," she whispered, panic rising in her voice. "He's burning up and he's not waking up. We have to stop—get him a healer or—"
Eleanor stood, gripping a brace on the carriage wall to steady herself as the vehicle bounced over a bump.
Her expression was unreadable. Her gaze fell on Vergil's unconscious body.
"…He's not just sick," she muttered. "Something is eating him from the inside. Something that doesn't want to be seen."
Elina looked up at her. "Then why are you standing there doing nothing?! Help me!"
"I am doing something," Eleanor snapped. "I'm thinking. Unlike you, I don't panic the second someone falls ill."
Elina's face twisted in frustration, but she said nothing. She was too focused on Vergil—wiping sweat from his brow, whispering words of comfort he couldn't hear.
Eleanor turned away and stared out the carriage window, arms crossed.
Her voice was quiet.
"His eye was glowing again" Eleanor muttered under her breath
Elina glanced up. "What did you say?"
"None of your conern." Eleanor muttered 'This eye is really getting on my nerves'
The words sent a chill through the air.
Elina's gaze returned to Vergil, whose lips now trembled faintly in his sleep.
He was murmuring again—barely audible.
"…Who are you… What do you want …Stop talking… sleep…"
Elina gripped his hand, her heart twisting.
"I don't know what you saw, Vergil," she whispered, "but we're here. You're not alone."
But Vergil didn't hear her.
He was still lost in the afterglow of madness.
And the road to the capital was still long.
Too long for what was coming next.
Vergil woke up.
But not in the carriage.
Not in the waking world.
There was no sky above him—only a hollow, yawning void that seemed to stretch into forever. It wasn't black. It wasn't grey. It was empty.
His body moved.
Not by his will.
He took a step.
Splash.
Then another.
Splash.
The sound was the only thing that accompanied him, repeating rhythmically with every motion as he walked through a sea of crimson. A red so deep it looked black under the false void, yet glimmered when disturbed—thick, like blood left to congeal under heat.
He didn't look down. He didn't even question how he wasn't sinking. The water rippled beneath his bare feet, but he felt no cold. No warmth. Only a faint, pulsing pressure in his skull—as if something were buried just beneath his consciousness, knocking to be let out.
He kept walking. Slowly. Quietly.
As though lured forward, not by fear—but by inevitability.
The world around him didn't breathe. It didn't hum or whisper. There were no winds. No stars. No horizon.
Just him.
And the red sea that went on forever.
His reflection wasn't visible on the water's surface. Only the color—so saturated it was almost offensive—responded to his movements.
He wasn't in control.
And deep inside, he knew it.
His hair had returned to its natural disheveled black, clinging slightly to his face with dampness he didn't feel. The glowing scarlet of his left eye pulsed softly, as if syncing with something unseen beneath the surface.
Then—
A disturbance.
A ripple.
But not caused by him.
It was far ahead, a slight shudder in the water's stillness. He didn't stop. Couldn't.
The ripple grew. Spread.
Then—swelled.
The sea he walked upon boiled violently in the distance, and something began to rise. Not slowly. Not with grace. But with the suddenness of a prison break. A massive form surged up from the depths, breaking through the surface of the crimson sea like a beast tasting air for the first time in eons.
It didn't roar. It didn't speak.
It simply rose.
And kept rising.
Vergil didn't flinch.
His feet carried him forward with mechanical resolve, while every fiber of his being screamed for him to stop. But he couldn't stop. He couldn't blink. He didn't think. He was drawn to it.
The thing rose higher.
Massive. Colossal. It scraped the heavens that weren't there, rising endlessly toward the nonexistent stars.
The waves it birthed as it emerged rolled across the crimson sea like thunderous tides.
They raced toward him.
They would have consumed him.
But just before they touched—
They collapsed, falling into the water like dying breaths, robbed of purpose.
Vergil's breath caught in his throat. His head pulsed. The pressure behind his eyebecame unbearable.
Vergils breath caught is throat. His head pulsed as his eye turned a even darker scarlet. As it began to bleee upon gazing at this ominous object. But his body began moving again. In a trance he was.
He took another step.
The outline of that thing—that presence—was becoming clearer. Closer. He was being drawn to it, no matter how far it seemed. As both eyes seemed to leak out blood.
Then—
A touch.
Soft, cold, final.
Something covered his eyes from behind. Not hands—a presence. It wrapped around his vision like a blindfold, smooth and unyielding, sealing his gaze before it could see too much.
Darkness overtook him instantly. Not unconsciousness. Not sleep.
Just—denial.
His body locked. His breath stilled. His very thoughts became static.
A voice—wordless, soundless—spoke into the bone of his soul.
"It is not time yet"
And then—
nothing.
His eyes slowly opened. His head was still pulsing, his face flushed—though not as badly as before. Oddly, he felt nothing was wrong. But even if something was, he couldn't bring himself to care.
The memories… were gone.
Usually, when someone lost their memories, there'd be a sense of something missing. A need to grasp for the fragments. But this was different. The memories from the dream world weren't just forgotten—they had been erased entirely, like they never existed to begin with.
"Finally up," Eleanor said, her voice as sharp as ever, though the way her arms were folded told him she had been watching him for some time.
Vergil groaned as he pushed himself upright, his body aching like he'd crawled back from the brink of death. His breath was ragged, sweat clinging to his skin. The world spun around him before slowly settling.
"H-How long have I been out?" he muttered, voice hoarse, as if he'd screamed for hours without end.
"It's been a day," Elina answered softly. She was sitting closer than before, hands resting in her lap, fingers fidgeting.
Vergil's gaze shifted toward her.
Orange.
A calm, steady orange danced around her like a late sunset. Not blazing, not wild—just warm. Compassion. Concern. Unwavering loyalty.
Even though his left eye wasn't glowing, his demonic sight was still active—still showing him the truths buried behind expressions and silence.
Then he turned to Eleanor.
Her aura was layered and dense.
Dark purple—cold logic, control. Judgment.
Threaded with deep blue—distance. Calculation.
But beneath that fortress of calm, Vergil saw it: a small, flickering red-orange flame.
Concern.
It was faint. Restrained. Guarded.
But it was there.
He smirked to himself. Not bad, Eleanor.
Then a sudden spark of grey flared in her aura—unexpected, brief. Doubt.
And just like that, it was gone.
"Don't push yourself," Elina said, noticing his uneven breath. "You're still burning up. And… whatever happened to you wasn't normal. You kept murmuring things in your sleep."
Eleanor's eyes narrowed. "You were writhing. Sweating. Like something was clawing its way out of you."
Vergil closed his eyes, searching… but there was nothing. "What do you mean?" he asked blankly.
"Huh?" Elina leaned in.
"I can't remember," he murmured, his voice low. "Nothing. It's like… nothing's there."
Outside, the carriage continued rolling over gravel as twilight descended. The sky had turned a gentle blend of soft purples and faded gold, the horizon flickering with dying light.
Silence pressed against the inside of the carriage.
Eleanor tilted her head. "Try to remember something. You were murmuring… something about a sea. A voice."
"Leave it," she said a moment later, her tone colder. "Dwelling on it will only cloud your focus. We're almost at the capital. You need to be sharp when we arrive."
"Vergil, take it easy for now," Elina added gently. "There's only three days left. You need to be in top form before the test."
Vergil looked between them. "I'm fine."
Elina gave a hesitant nod.
Eleanor didn't speak, but he caught it—a shimmer in her aura. Another flicker of concern, subtle and fleeting, before it sank back behind layers of control.
The grey didn't return.
Vergil leaned back against the seat, head still foggy. Something was wrong, he knew it. Something had happened. But whatever it was… it didn't want to be remembered.
Suddenly—
"Halt!" The group leader's voice rang out.
The carriage jolted to a stop, followed by the three behind it.
The horses neighed, unsettled.
Vergil's eyes snapped toward the window. A strange silence fell outside.
The air… had changed.