"You knew Tara was using you. You knew she wasn't a good person. You knew she was pushing you toward violence, toward the fighting ring, toward this confrontation. You knew all of it, and you went along anyway."
"Because it was easier."
"Because you wanted to be controlled. You wanted someone else to make the choices. You wanted to surrender."
Hoshimi was silent for a long moment. The void hummed. The scabbard waited.
"I want to surrender."
"Do you?"
"Of course. What reason do I have to keep living? What reason do I have when I'm not serving other people?"
"And yet," the scabbard said, "your mother controlled you because she loved you. Are you going to let her death go to waste? She died so you could live, Audrey died because of you, you promised Seraphina that you were going to kill Audrey's killer, you haven't fulfilled your promise yet."
"I don't know."
"If you really plan to die, then die properly, don't die in a dumpster, live a normal life."
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"Everyone who loves you will also use you, and everyone who uses you might also love you. You're supposed to make your own choices anyway, stop being a puppet and show me your dreams, tell me what you want to be."
–
The void had grown darker. The scabbard's golden trim was the only light, and even that was dimming.
"You don't have much time," the scabbard said. "Your body is failing. If you want to live, you need to make a choice."
"What choice? I'm bleeding out in a dumpster. There's no one coming to save me."
"There is always a choice. You can surrender to the darkness and let go of everything, the guilt, the grief, the unbearable weight of being alive. It would be easy. Easier than anything you've ever done."
"That sounds good."
"Or you can choose to live. You can fight. You can claw your way back to consciousness and heal your wounds and climb out of that dumpster and keep going. It will be hard. Harder than anything you've ever done. Remember the people around you, remember what they mean to your life."
Hoshimi stared at the scabbard. "I don't know if I want to live."
"Then find a reason. It doesn't have to be a good reason. It doesn't have to be noble or heroic or meaningful. It just has to be yours."
The scabbard suddenly disappeared.
"This girl is important to you isn't she?"
Standing in front of him… was a girl of short stature, her long blonde pigtails sparkled as her blue gaze pierced through him, she had a warm smile on her face, an expression that didn't really fit her face.
[I want to live.]
The thought was small. Fragile. Barely there. But it was his.
"I want to live," he said aloud.
"Good," the girl said. "Then there are some things you need to know."
–
"Arthur had many weapons," the girl said. "The sword was only one of them. He had a shield. He had a spear. He had a cloak. Each of these was forged, for a different purpose. And each of them is bound to you, as the sword was bound to you."
"The shield," Hoshimi said. "What happened to it?"
"The shield was never a physical object. It was a protection, a barrier between Arthur and the world. It manifested as his resilience, his ability to withstand blows that would have killed lesser men. It was his armor, his defense, his refusal to break."
"When did I ever have something like that?"
"You had it. But you pierced it yourself. The shield was designed to protect you from external threats, but its large size had also clouded your vision. It could not protect you from yourself and the guilt you've been carrying, the grief, the self-hatred, the desperate wish to undo what cannot be undone has shattered it from within."
Hoshimi's chest tightened. "So I destroyed it."
"You damaged it. But shields can always be repaired and armor can be reforged. The shield will return when you are ready to forgive yourself. It is acceptance. It is the willingness to carry what you have done without letting it crush you."
"I don't know if I can do that."
"You don't have to know. You just have to try."
"And the cloak?"
"The cloak has always been with you. You've been using it for years without knowing what it was."
Hoshimi stared at him. "The invisibility."
"Yes. Arthur's cloak was a gift. It allowed him to move unseen. You inherited it. You've been using it since you were a child. It is part of you, as much as the sword ever was."
"And the spear?"
"Rhongomyniad." The girl's voice grew softer, almost reverent. "The spear that pierces all things. The pillar of the world. The lance that can reach across any distance. And it has been with you from the beginning."
"Where?"
The girl was silent for a long moment. The void around them seemed to pulse, to breathe, to shift in ways that Hoshimi couldn't quite perceive.
"Look under you," the girl said finally.
"This white void where we have always met. This is Rhongomyniad."
Hoshimi looked around. The emptiness stretched infinitely in every direction, featureless and still.
"This is a spear?"
"This is the space within the spear. Rhongomyniad is not just a weapon, it is a threshold, a boundary between worlds. Arthur used it to travel, to communicate, to reach across distances that no physical weapon could span. And when he died, it became part of his reincarnation. Part of you."
"So I've been carrying it this whole time."
"You've been standing inside it. Every time you've come here, every conversation we've had you've been within the spear. It is your sanctuary. Your home."
"Then why can't I use it?"
"Not yet. The spear is dormant. The sword was used to guide your way to Kingship, but unfortunately, your guide has been temporarily thrown off course, you need to find your own way, find your own path to become a king. The spear's awakening is all the proof you need once you are free from being controlled."
Hoshimi was quiet for a long moment. The void was growing darker, the scabbard's light dimming to a faint, flickering glow.
"I want to find Sophia. I want to stop Sarah. I want to-" He paused. Swallowed. "After I've done everything, then I'll die, I want to kill Sarah, I want to choke her until her very last breath, I want to cave her skull in. I want her dead."
The scabbard's light flared. For a moment, the void was brilliant, blinding, filled with a radiance that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
The scabbard said. "Climb out of the dumpster. Heal your wounds. The spear will be waiting."
The light faded. The void dissolved. And Hoshimi fell backward into darkness.
–
He woke to the smell of rotting garbage.
His body was broken. He could feel it, the wound in his chest where the woman's Zenith had torn through him, the cuts and bruises from being thrown into the dumpster, the blood that had soaked through his borrowed clothes and dried into a stiff, dark crust.
But his heart was still beating. His lungs were still drawing breath. He was still alive.
[It hurts, like boiling hot water. It feels so hot]
"Vitae Core."
The healing was slow, agonizingly slow. His body was exhausted, barely holding on by a thread. But the wound in his chest began to close. The bleeding stopped. The bones that had been cracked or broken began to knit themselves back together.
It took hours. Maybe longer. Time had stopped meaning anything.
When he finally pushed himself upright, the dumpster was dark and the sky above was scattered with stars. He was covered in filth, garbage juice and old blood.
He climbed out of the dumpster.
His legs were unsteady beneath him. His hands were shaking. His whole body was screaming at him to lie down, to rest, to stop. But he kept moving.
The alley behind the warehouse was empty. The door he'd been thrown through was closed, the light behind it extinguished.
[No wonder she had connections here. She was lying about everything, she had lied about her child, she had lied about her past. Why couldn't I tell?]
He walked.
The city was different at this hour. The neon signs were dimmed, the crowds dispersed, the streets empty except for the occasional drunk and the distant wail of sirens.
[Was I really just that absorbed in Tara?]
He didn't know where he was going. Didn't know what he was going to do when he got there. But he kept walking.
[Everyone there is being controlled. I was being controlled, why couldn't I just snap out of it? Was it because of her alluring nature? I never bothered to see if she was ever a witch. Why?]
The hotel was still there.
It was a modest building in the lower district, its neon sign flickering in the early morning darkness. The lobby was empty. The clerk was asleep behind the desk. Hoshimi climbed the stairs, each step a monumental effort, each landing a small victory, until he reached the door he'd been looking for.
"Rouge…" He tasted the name in his mouth, "that must be Sarah's true name. I'm going to kill her."
He knocked.
Three times.
The door opened.
Neila stood in the doorway.
Her blonde hair was loose around her shoulders, her blue eyes wide.
And then his legs gave out, and he collapsed into her arms.