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|…say… just a wild thought, but is the space he is in right now the same space that we…?|

|No. look around – he is surrounded by perfect, silk-like darkness, we are in the world of murky shadows. Also, if he was here, I would have torn him into shreds already.|

Zoemi looked around the space they were in and asked curiously, but was interrupted by an angry-sounding original personality.

~~~~~~~~

*********

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*BUMP*

”Wha…?!”

*thump*

Suddenly Arisu felt someone’s hands on his back and he was pushed violently.

It was so sudden that he couldn’t keep his balance and fell.

”Loser.”

A female voice rang through the darkness.

”Huh? Elsby?! Why did you push me!? Know your place, you instinct weirdo!”

Arisu complained when he recognized the voice.

But no response came…

”…the audacity…”

The young man stood up, on one hand, he was angry that Elsby was pranking him, but on the other hand, he felt relieved that he wasn’t alone.

”Hey! Answer me! I promise I won’t get angry!”

He took a few steps and suddenly he tripped on some rope.

”Ugh… What’s going on…?”

He groaned and started feeling around with his hand.

What he had found were… strands of long hair.

”O-Oktria…? Hey, it’s not funny at all you know?”

He complained.

*SNAP*

”Ghh…!”

Then the hair suddenly became alive, it broke free from his grasp and smacked him across the face like a whip.

”Don’t touch me, scum!”

Another female voice cussed him out.

”Wha… Who are you calling a scum, Oktria?! I’m a hero!”

Arisu retaliated.

No response. Again.

The young man frowned and his eyes and hair turned blue. He used the water to clean the wound on his face…

*SLAM*

”!!!”

And then someone kicked him in the back of his head.

Hard.

”O-owww…!”

Arisu groaned, grabbing the sore spot.

Whoever hit him wasn’t holding back at all…

”To think that I was worried for a trash like you!”

”A-aunt Raseriat…? Wh-why would you kick me?”

”Why?”

*WHAM*

”Augh…!”

This time an elderly male voice asked and Arisu was kicked in the teeth.

”Ghamphs…?”

The kick burst his lips so the words came out a bit distorted.

”Because you are a vile scum, that’s why!”

*THUMP*

Someone else dropped their heel on Arisu’s back.

”The little second princess. Princess Miriette, does that ring a bell?”

*SLAM*

A knee to the guts forced all the air out of Arisu’s lungs and send him tumbling across the darkness.

”I-I don’t know what…”

Arisu gasped for air.

”Don’t know?”

*TWACK*

Another person kicked him in the kneecap.

”You thought we won’t learn about it?”

*SLAM*

A punch to the side of the neck.

”That you were harassing her?”

*CRUSH*

Someone stomped on his fingers with a heavy boot.

”That you were stalking her?”

Someone else grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back,

”That you snuck into her room at night?”

***ACK*

A slap to the face.

”That you snuck into her bed at night?!”

*WHAM*

A punch to the guts.

”That you were touching her?!”

***ASH*

A devastating kick to the groins.

”A nine-year-old girl!”

*THUMP*

Someone swiped at his legs and Arisu came crashing to the ground.

”It wasn’t like that…! I… I loved her…! And I still love her…! You must believe me…!”

”You little…!”

*BOOOOM*

A kick to the guts so powerful it nearly split the Arisu in half sending him flying so far away that hitting the ground nearly killed him.

*THUMP*

”GHU-GHUACK…! GHUGH..! Ghugh…!”

Arisu ended up on his back and he couldn’t stop coughing.

”Fa-ther… I… I swear…!”

the young man cried out in despair.

”Arisu… Why would you do that…? Your father and I didn’t raise you that way…! Were we too soft on you…?”

Kirissu’s crying voice sounded through the darkness.

”…!”

Arisu felt that someone is sitting on him and then he felt someone’s hands wrapping around his neck.

”Arisu… No… Cherro. My baby. Why did you end up like this…?”

Kirissu was crying, despite not seeing a thing, Arisu could feel the hot tears dropping onto his chest, at the same time the grip on his neck was getting stronger and stronger.

”Mommy will take the responsibility… As I should have done from the very begging. Don’t worry Cherro… it will all end soon.”

”Mother…!”

Arisu was being strangled with more and more force, he could feel his throat getting crushed little by little.

”Shhh… My child… Mommy will make it all stop…”

A calming voice of a doting mother.

The mother that loved him above all else…

”NO!”

Arisu shouted.

*WHAM*

His eyes and hair became brown and his body shone with the strongest enchants, he threw off the shadowy figure and started coughing and gasping for air.

”Ah….! A-Arisu…! How could you…?! Your own mother…?!”

”!!!”

An angry voice shredded through the darkness, Arisu shivered, it was his father’s voice, but he had never sounded so angry.

”You’ve killed her! Your own mother! When she only wanted to help you!”

Carcassuss roared and his shadowy figure appeared before Arisu.

”K-Killed?! N-no…! I would never…! I didn’t want to…! B-but she attacked me…! She wanted to kill me…!”

*WHAM*

Arisu yelped, and then he felt a smack to the face so hard that it slammed him to the ground.

”And what else would help such a worthless bastard such as you?! A death will be a blessing for the likes of you!”

Carcassuss’s voice boomed in the space drowned in perfect silky darkness.

”Father, no! I- I swear it’s not like this! I-I can explain!”

”Explain what? How you abused the second princess!? How, when we clearly decided to kill off the

royal family, you instead decided to kidnap her for your own twisted pleasures?”

The shadowy figure of Carcassuss trembled from fury and his darkness blade, the two-handed longsword, emerged from the top of his wrist.

”B-but we were going to kill them! Why wouldn’t I take her for myself, I love her! I would lock her up and make her only mine! What’s so wrong with that?! It’s a better option than being killed! If she only admitted that she loved me I would even consider letting her come outside with me once it was safe! But then she ended up dying in the darkness! It wasn’t my fault! She was too weak! She wanted to break free so I had to use more force! I thought that she would calm down if she’ll get a bit melted by the darkness! I didn’t mean for her to die! And then that stupid toy bear, Zoemi, killed me! Me! A hero who was trying to protect his princess!”

Arisu snapped and started shouting at the shadowy figure of his father.

”What’s the big deal?! We were going to kill them all anyway! Why wouldn’t I be allowed to play around with a little princess! I took away her toys and said that she has threw them away so she would think only about me, if not for that bear it would have worked! So what that I snuck into her room?! She was asleep, she never noticed me! And the same with touching! A little skinship never hurt anyone! So what if I was an adult and she was still a child!”

Arisu was shouting, his eyes returned to being white but a few of the blood vessels in his eyes burst so his whites were now dyed red making him look like a demon, his hair became disheveled and he was fuming from the mouth…

”Shut up.”

The shadowy figure of Arisu’s father disappeared, and so did all the voices of his comrades.

The only one left was Zoemi standing above the half-mad Arisu, looking down on him with disgust.

”YOUUUUU!”

Arisu roared and threw himself at Zoemi.

*SHING*

The black-haired boy sidestepped and leisurely waved his hand from which a darkness blade Zweihander was still protruding and cut off both of Arisu’s arms.

”AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGHHHH….!”

Arisu wailed like a butchered pig and failed around spewing the blood from fresh stumps all over the darkness.

”I said. SHUT. UP.”

Zoemi said coldly and both stumps and Arisu’s mouth froze solid in an instant.

The black-haired boy shook his head and looked Arisu in the face.

”Hmph.”

*SHING*

Then he frowned and shook his hand as if he was shooking off a bit of dirt and Arisu’s legs were blown off and the white-haired boy fell face-first into the pool of his own blood.

His mouth was shut so while trying to scream through his nose he took a whole noseful of blood into his lungs.

He started coughing violently, nearly coughing his eyeballs out.

Zoemi frowned and helped him by holding his head still.

With his foot.

Down into the blood.

Also, he didn’t remove the ice blocking Arisu’s mouth.

Surprisingly, Arisu survived that.

*WHAM*

So as a prize, Zoemi kicked him up and sat him down into a half-sitting position.

”Honestly, I’m not sure what to do with you, you know? I can completely erase your soul right now so that my master will be finally at rest, but that would be too easy… For you, I mean, Because you deserve to suffer… Oh well… Even so, I shouldn’t let my master wait too long. She is a spoiled little lady after all…”

*SHING*

”!!!!!!!!!”

Zoemi said and stabbed his clawed hand into Arisu’s stomach.

*RIIIIIIP*

And then he pulled Arisus intestines out.

The white-haired mage lost the remaining sanity he had left in him at the sight, he didn’t know that Zoemi was using healing magic, barely enough to keep Arisu alive, to prolong the suffering.

Arisu was waving his stumps, his attempts to shove his insides back inside were as satisfying to watch as they were completely useless. The only thing that the young man managed to accomplish was to spray his surroundings with lots and lots of blood as Zoemi let the ice on his stumps melt.