Chương 122: CHAPTER 118 - Equal, but Never Reached, Distance

The ruins of Icarus remained mute, shaken without sound by constant bursts of black filaments. They erupted from the walls and rock with violence, piercing any matter that intruded in their motion. Amid that slimy swarming, a man swung two heavy iron maces, identical in every way to tuning forks overly intricate with circuits. They vibrated furiously, shaking the surrounding air with every swing. The tentacles they grazed exploded, fraying as soundless sparks vanished at the feet of the two combatants.

Roman and Lautre crossed weapons, alternating broad, violent slashes and rapid blows. Neither wavered, unable to reach the other with any kind of offensive. The tuning fork and the swollen mass of tendrils collided, fracturing the air and rock around them. Lautre smiled, raising the second weapon and striking the iron bracket. The vibrations condensed, shattering the island where their spirits collided. Debris exploded toward every cardinal direction, spreading a fog of dust and molten iron.

Immediately, the tendrils assembled, forming wings around Roman, greased by a viscous film. A single beat, and hundreds of picks with feathered handles fell like bombs around the remaining islands. Lautre navigated among the explosions, marking them distinctly before they even touched ground and camouflaging himself in smoke and silence. One of the tuning forks emerged from the smoke as soon as the instruments stopped falling, hurled at insane speed toward his chest.

A swarm of slimy tendril puppets manifested before Roman, awkwardly waving their hands as they were pierced by the vibrations. Roman extended his hand, trying to intercept it, when he suddenly felt something. Below, to his left, the only and first sound he had heard since the clash began: a cannon. The tuning fork vanished before him, and now Lautre was wielding its twin, still wrapped in dust and smoke. The two clashed again, exchanging thrusts in the air as they sized each other up.

Once more the weapons and his flesh resounded. Roman countered Lautre, despite the thousands of lesions that opened and closed every time he tried to oppose that vibration. He moved his lips; he knew what he was saying, yet he met only the sharp, cruel gaze of that strangely pale man. He smiled, removing his thumb and middle finger from the grip.

"Why did you kill her?!" Roman thundered again with that distorted voice, shaking the air. In his rage, he failed to recognize the reappearance of sounds, and Lautre understood this. Maintaining that faint smile, he snapped his fingers. The air seemed almost to ripple, then shattered like glass. Roman was hurled among the islands, trying to stop himself using the tentacles while the rock behind him continued to break apart.

"No matter how hard I try, I can't…" Lautre was grabbed by a shadow that emerged silently from the ruins. He was dragged and hurled into the rock, feeling his apparatus scrape against the rough concrete. He shook his head, raising both tuning forks. A new explosion swept away the slime. The islands around began to disintegrate, returning to the atmosphere with the thundering roar of the rain of concrete and iron. Both emerged from the rubble, inspecting each other.

"I asked you a question, and I demand an answer!" Roman's spectral, rasping voice cut through the air, shaking it. Lautre stared at him impassively, lowering his head.

"Why did I kill her?" A whitish mist caressed the albino man's lips, momentarily covering his eyes with a clouded, opaque red. The tuning forks vibrated an instant before his figure vanished. Roman turned sharply, too slow to react. The air cracked again before exploding, hurling him through various debris and ruined buildings. Numerous lances and banners woven from tendrils exploded, impaling the area with ruthless precision. Lautre remained motionless, merely swinging the larger tuning fork above his head.

The blows stopped above him, dispersing. As he brought the weapon back to guard, a dark, oily blade found itself inches from his face.

"You got faster, eh?" The vibrations shattered the ground as the two clashed, ignoring the silence in their chests. One lash after another, Lautre lost ground, feeling his bones grow weaker.

"You must be really focused not to hear your own heartbeat." Roman's mutilated face furrowed before the tuning fork pierced his leg. Lautre's fingers had already rested delicately on his chest, and so the beat had returned vigorously in their ribcages. Roman twisted his torso, trying to lash out, but Lautre's extended hand turned into a fist, hurling him away as if an invisible lance had just pierced his sternum.

"I killed her because this is the lifestyle you chose!" He growled ferociously, staring at him with those cloudy yet so alive and burning eyes. Roman ground his teeth as the tendrils repaired the muscles and bones collapsed after the impact.

"You… You dare tell me it's my fault…"

"You, instead, think I haven't suffered in this shitty rag of a life?!" A violent shockwave tore through the battlefield, sweeping away buildings and debris. The rock crumbled as numerous vibrations lacerated the island. Roman advanced, regenerating the gashes that opened along his armor of tendrils. Other fibers began to grow along his legs, expanding and contracting.

"What would a man like you know about it…" Roman exploded forward, accelerating at insane speed. A white halo formed around him as he charged Lautre. The tuning forks sparkled against the rock as they were held above his head, just like a drummer's sticks.

"How dare you compare yourself to me!" The two masses collided, and for an instant all sounds ceased to exist. In the silence, a new energy spread through the crackling air. Their clash erased another island. Thousands of shadow filaments spread through the air, trying to stitch together the remains of rock and incandescent metal. As a new, spectral island formed, Lautre stared at the scene. The impact had broken the arms holding the tuning forks, now gushing warm and strangely oily blood.

He advanced in silence, shaking the blood from his hands as he tightened his grip.

"Believe me, I know what life is." Their gazes fused again in that pulsating amalgam of black oil and dark tendrils. From the amorphous ground, bony, sharp limbs continued to generate in constant rhythmic movement. Both their eyes flashed. Lautre's with red and blue, and Roman's iridescent green.

"Precisely because I know what life is… I must try hard for them too." Roman fell silent, raising the axe that had become his arm, wrapped in a spiral of filaments. They sized each other up for an instant before vanishing, leaving behind the debris just raised. Lautre's tuning forks managed to slice the filaments, vibrating together with his arms. Every blow cut the air, splitting it along with the black substance hovering around them. With every impact from Roman, similar ones followed from every direction.

The two thus danced in the slime, without managing to truly hit the other. Their bodies were martyred by gashes and impacts, yet their rhythm only increased. Roman landed a blow with the flat of the axe on the ground. The rock shattered, giving footing to the myriad bones in the tendrils." Dush, pokhorony!" Humeri, radii, and phalanges fused into a black lance, hurling toward his chest. They clashed against the vibrating metal of the tuning fork, shattering.

Lautre now turned, twisting his arm and torso as if to deliver a lash. Behind him, the sun had been covered by the axe." Vague!" From the tuning fork emerged, invisible, a slash of compressed energy. Mistinguette's dome had narrowed, absorbing the vibrations from the creaking bones around him. The axe was lacerated, along with the ground and his shoulder. Roman's enormous body frayed, revealing for an instant the torn, greasy tissues beneath." ROCKING!"

The sounds died for an instant, propagating from Lautre's knuckles. The impact opened a gash in his flank, sending Roman through the floating debris. The pain in his bones made him tremble, while the liquid contained within his mechanism began to run low.

"I should have expected that in this singularity the fluid would lose effectiveness." He grabbed the larger tuning fork again, slashing behind him. Bone shards and filaments soared behind him, shattering against the ruins. He launched into a run along a path marked by various collapsed buildings. Behind him, hundreds of filaments culminated in spectral figures. Howls and cries echoed behind him despite the insane speed with which he crossed the region.

The rock was torn apart as bones and shovels clashed among themselves just to reach him.

"If I should use Requiem now…" An explosion separated him from the tide of bodies, pushing him ever higher through the remains of what should have been a tower. In the ruinous labyrinth of stairs, he managed to glimpse a light. The figures seemed almost to bloom, tearing the remnants of civilization into a spiral of tools and bone structures. They united to form a kind of serpent, while Icarus's light illuminated Lautre, with both tuning forks pressed one against the other.

He made them slide against each other in a crescendo of sparks and vibrations." RECITAL!" The air cracked in multiple points, extending bluish forms into space. From silence came a creaking of unreal shards. Roman's serpent vanished, mutilated by the various shockwaves extending through the singularity. The entire region was leveled, swept away by gray winds carrying concrete and iron. The tendrils supporting the old island withdrew, uniting the rubble with the storm.

Their eyes did not meet, yet from below to above, they could perceive each other's presence. Two bursts echoed in the disaster, and two figures penetrated the dust. An old blade of bone and a furious vibration clashed against each other. The wind vanished, swept away by the force of that impact. Their faces a few fingers apart, furious and bleeding. Tentacles coiled from the shoulder blades around Roman's arm, pushing ever more against the metal of the Diapason.

Streams of liquid erupted from Roman's eyes and pierced his flank, yet he did not stop pressing.

"You have everything to lose!" Lautre was hurled through the rocks, immediately followed by Roman. Before he could rise, the colossus landed a violent kick, sending him flying against a wall. His body slid, falling to his feet. He coughed, spitting grainy blood rich in violet micelles. Roman stared at him for a moment through those now-dead eyes. Beneath his soles, the rubble crumbled. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

A new impact shook the island, howling up beyond the sky.

"Exactly… I've already lost so much." With both tuning forks, he had stopped the blade, directing it against the wall behind him. Roman, however much he tried, was unable to free the weapon from his grip.

"I can't afford to lose anything else!" Lautre kicked the colossus away, leaving a furrow. The two thus resumed fighting in a whirlwind of slashes. From the ground emerged servants of darkness, torn apart at birth by the vibrations emerging from the man's instruments. The tuning forks oscillated to the rhythm of his heartbeat, crashing down on Roman from all directions.

The bones began to shatter, his ears to bleed, and the voice accompanying his ability to become ever sharper and sadder, yet Lautre understood that he had to win. Despite the pain, he yearned to strike him, to tear away that disgusting armor to hit the true body. Remains of Roman hung from the earlier wound, while other parts took the place of those mangled by the vibrations. Suddenly, in one exchange, the tuning forks and Roman's arm-turned-blade soared into the air, separated from their owners.

In that moment, attention was not placed on the weapons but remained fossilized. Hand blows, elbows, fists, and headbutts struck both faces. Lautre advanced panting, driving his trembling knuckles ever deeper. Roman was pushed backward, waiting.

"You and that merchant…" They stopped, simultaneously pulling back their torsos. They stared at each other for a second before lunging forward.

"WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PROTECTING?!" Their fingers shattered each other, destroying the wall and sending them in opposite directions. Lautre soared into the air, grabbing one of the tuning forks still embedded. Roman regenerated the blade, awaiting his rival's lunge. In a final exchange, bone and metal clashed.

"Got it." The tuning fork was cut in two, exploding into a thousand pieces immediately after. Roman's scythe crashed down on him, only to meet the same fate as the Diapason. From Lautre's eyes gushed blood of a less vibrant red than that decorating his irises. Lautre's entire body vibrated, distorting his figure." Mistinguette, Burlesque." That vibrating hand pierced Roman's leg, blocking him in place.

Lautre Clerc's ability was peculiar by the standards of Lucas's established theory: normally a Meta should not be able to extend their influence to the surrounding environment, save rare cases, yet Lautre was capable of doing so in complete autonomy, as if some spirit guided those multicolored eyes.

"The hall of the world calls us, and we await applause!" The fully extended fingers rested on Roman's chest. Around them, everything ceased to move and make noise." Fortissimo!" The fist closed abruptly, condensing all the surrounding noise into pure energy. A blinding white light spread for an instant, piercing Roman. The clouds opened, and for Icarus, the howl of the explosion echoed. Before him, a cylinder of void was carved into the rubble and debris.

At his feet, writhing remains of limbs and bones began to vanish. Lautre advanced through the hot ground, ignoring the dismembered hand. Streams of dense blood erupted at regular intervals, diminishing in volume each time.

"I must be a bit rusty. In these conditions, I couldn't even use Fortissimissimo." He smiled, holding an iron bar as if it were his tuning fork. He halted his steps before Roman, embedded in the rock with a large hole in his chest. His mutated body had completely shattered, revealing the rotten organs pierced by worms of darkness. With every arduous breath, the cage trying to contain that flesh creaked and hissed.

His eyes had become a light green, more alive and devoid of that strange whitish cloud that had accompanied them during the clash.

"I was wrong, I'm sure of it…" Lautre lowered his weapon, staring at that man's bent gaze.

"Do you have regrets?" Roman smiled, spitting a pulsating, greenish clot onto the ground.

"No, I was just reflecting on how my memory had suddenly returned." He smiled, staring at other islands in the distance. The dust of the great explosions and that black aura in the sky had dissipated little by little, bringing back the pale sun of the celestial tomb.

"You know… I was married for a period, just like your friend." At the second mention of Edvard, Lautre gripped the metal to the point of crushing it.

"Give rein to your phlegm, Lautre Clerc. I have pondered enough regarding the hatred I feel toward that man. Do you know the story of the Anchored?" He loosened his grip, nodding.

"Edvard told me about it. That faction of his family that continues to believe in an old legend, without proof or rest in accepting that it's just a legend." Roman chuckled, ignoring the streams of slime accumulating on his lips.

"The legend of Catherine Ross, the first matriarch of the family. It's said she died during the worst storm the world had ever known, but in the end it's just a cover. The Ross family has always venerated the phantom remains of her ship. Heretics, according to the Empire." Roman exchanged a glance with Lautre before continuing.

"I believe that was a now-extinguished relic, and that Catherine Ross lived as a Meta. I worked as a writer and soon made myself noticed by that family. I was welcomed into the nobility, honored with a Madame, and in the end by a joyous little daughter. As long as my writings gave praise to that faction, as long as I continued to include those symbols in my works…" He smiled, keeping his head on his adversary.

"They betrayed me, sold during the war, and my wife… My daughter…" Lautre whistled, interrupting him.

"You're wasting the last words you'll ever speak, because they fall on deaf ears." Roman nodded, continuing to chuckle.

"I don't deny that your story is sad, but it's not the only depressing story I've tried to listen to. The point where we are now is nothing but the sum of our actions and choices." From the remains of the contraption nailed to his back, a small pistol began to form, with a single violet bullet in the blood-red glass chamber.

"If the score gets stained, if a note was copied badly, or if there are errors, it's up to the musician to restore beauty to that song. We can't always choose what to play, but we can choose to make it grateful to those who lend us an ear and to ourselves above all." Roman began to laugh as Lautre loaded the weapon, staring him straight in the eyes.

"You, of all people, manage to dispense such maxims?" Roman laughed on, the tendrils on his chest writhing rhythmically. As he delicately placed his finger on the trigger, a grayish cloud expanded in the distance, trying to swallow a tentacular, slimy darkness boiling on the horizon.

"Edvard?" Lautre made the mistake of being too kind. From the putrefied flesh emerged a cracked syringe, with a minimal part of black slime still floating. He squeezed the trigger too late, when the last dose was already in Roman's vein. Although the bullet had pierced his skull, Roman screamed without stopping as thick plates of interwoven bone grew along what remained of his body.

"He forced the Irre status?!" Lautre snatched the iron bracket, only to find his palm pierced by a black dart. He immediately retreated backward, darting in all directions to avoid that swarm of dark tendrils. From one of them, an outgrowth formed; Lautre couldn't avoid it, being hurled away by the colossal neoplastic arm. He stopped at the edge of the island, his head almost dangling into the void below. His gaze fixed on the pall of smoke on the horizon.

"I have to use it…" He stood up, touching his bleeding flank. In his hands, he held a syringe. With a slight movement of his head, he checked the device, now close to falling apart. He got back on his feet exactly when Roman emerged from the rock. His body had mutated beyond any form: his face had disappeared, replaced by a helm of streaming filaments, his shoulders pointed as if he wore armor. In silence he walked, dragging with him a halberd with a head like a pickaxe.

Behind him, vines of bone grew luxuriantly from stagnant pools.

"It won't last long… My form." Roman whispered, almost hissing but still managing to be heard. Lautre stood up, clenching his fists and injecting the syringe, driving it directly into his neck.

"Come." The two vanished again, leaving in place of their figures dozens of craters, shocks, tremors, masses of tendrils, and pools of boiling blood. Lautre emerged from the remains of buildings with both hands torn open, his trembling leg embedded in Roman's chest. The armor creaked, regenerating faster than the vibrations lacerated it.

"After all, it's right this way. I only know how to fight and kill." Lautre drove his knuckles into his skull, shattering the ground.

"There's no need to worry about anything else." He was about to close the fight, his vibrating hand ready to fall in silence. His eyes, however, shifted again toward the horizon. Lautre noticed the smoke, permeated with black patches. In that moment, the strong arm lost its vigor for an instant. The tendrils reformed, and the forearm was pierced. The black vines devoured the capillaries, erupting from the skin.

"Shit!" At that moment, the halberd plummeted toward Lautre's nape. He raised his hand abruptly in an attempt to parry when, suddenly, the ground and the space between them were simply split.

"I never imagined I would rescue you." A man in a robe, with a heavy sword strapped to his back, appeared right between them. His icy hand grabbed Roman by the neck, hurling him away as golden sparks fluttered around. Both Lautre and the newcomer landed on their feet. Roman halted his fall on a throne of tendrils, never ceasing to point his helm toward the two.

"I didn't imagine the first to be rescued would be me. Lucky me that you got on patrol!" Lautre laughed, scratching his head as a golden light spread around them. He noticed it came from the scabbard he carried at his side. A dark wood, bordered with lively splashes of green and gold, tied to his side by an ivory thread, and from which Lautre swore a whistle came.

"If I may, the situation is complex everywhere. Noel and Lance haven't opened communications since that cut, same for Maliard and Jeanne. Monica had tracked their leader, and I was going to provide support when I ran into her and Edvard." He looked around, noticing the patches.

"So Maverick authorized you, Hoku?" The boy nodded, instantly unsheathing the blade. The shadow limbs hurled at them were reduced to shreds before vanishing. The blade's edge shone golden despite the dense blanket of clouds about to form. It was a shorter blade than the standard issue, with thin golden branches fused within the almost brown metal." Odenta Mitsuyo, the sacred healing blade. It was my father's first relic." He also unsheathed the second, the one he had always carried.

With a series of flashes, the sword emerged from the hole with a mechanical snap. Now only the grand scabbard on his shoulders remained to guard it.

"The one on your back... Is it what I think?" Hoku nodded at Lautre's words, feeling the weight on his shoulders.

"However, I lack the aptitude to unsheathe it." Lautre gave him a pat on the shoulder, heading toward Edvard.

"Be careful." Lautre turned, watching the man he once knew as Roman.

"I'm sorry that it had to end this way. We could have been pals in another life, Roman Dostoj." With those words, Lautre vanished, leaving him and Roman alone. The knight, wrapped in tendrils, grew angry, hissing and shattering the throne on which he rested in anticipation of the clash.

"I'll kill you… and finish the job." Hoku nodded, resting the tips of both blades on the ground.

"I don't think that's possible." The space was cut, and so their weapons clashed. Shreds of filaments and gushes of black blood exploded around them while a silver glow made its way through Hoku's pupils.

"However, I am permitted to hear your last wishes." They pushed apart as the ruins around them slid away, divided.