THE END: (Fe)Male Roar
"Noire..."
Two figures lay on the bloodied ground of a scorched battlefield; their journeys, their long-fought resistance, finally about to come to a screeching halt. The fabled calamity trigger had led to this eventuality... The end of it all was swiftly approaching!
"N-Neptune...?"
By the end of this day, no one would be left standing.
"I-I'm sorry, Noire... T-This is all my fault... I screwed up..."
By the end of this day...
"No... This is my fault... and everyone else's, too! Y-You couldn't help it... None of us could..."
My paradise, a Heaven of my own creation, will be complete!
"I let Iffy down... Compa down... Nep Jr... Histy... You... Everyone..."
"D-Don't say that!"
As the two lovers lay side by side, vowing to stick together to the very end, a sickeningly-pale figure sauntered up to them, weapon drawn at the ready. It was a familiar figure... Terrible, but familiar.
Like Death itself, the executioner creeped up to the two goddesses with a horrific calmness. After these past few weeks, killing had become but a mere routine... and these fools were simply petty vexations at this point. Ending their lives would end the chaos...
Ending their lives would save the world.
"N-Noirey... I-I'm scared."
"... S-So am I..."
The ill-fated couple, too weak to fight any longer, stared up at the killer standing before them. They were resigned to their fate...
Nothing could save them now.
"It is a general truism of this world that anything long divided will surely unite, and anything long united will surely divide."
...
Greetings, one and all! Hm, or would 'Welcome Back!' be more appropriate?
Ah, who gives a crap about semantics? We have a story to finish!
... Oh, what's that? You returning readers are wondering just where the hell the 'usual' narrator is?
That's a tricky one! Hmm... Let's just say he's... finally facing his ultimate Judgement at the moment. He just sat through so much heavy shit that I guess he couldn't take it no more. Heh heh...
Thus, here I am, currently the only occupant in this fateful booth, awaiting the beautiful end. Oho, and let me tell you, it will be glorious!
... But... perhaps I'm getting a little too ahead of myself... Wouldn't it be much more impactful if you all had some context to this scene? Not that it really matters to me, but... it'd be more fun. ^_^
...
... Do you know what true horror is? Do you really?
Well, at least in my humble opinion, the scariest stories are not ones with ghosts and monsters and devils and slasher-movie villains...
No... I firmly believe that any type of story can be scary. You know why? It all has to do... with the characters.
True suspense, true fear, true horror, comes not from an enigmatic beast terrorizing asshole college students... but from seeing characters you know and love facing their mortality.
But what's even scarier than that is when you know something bad... no, horrible is going to happen to someone dear to your heart, and you can't do a damned thing to help. You know they're going to get hurt, or they're going to die... and all you can do is read or watch on with dread.
That, my friends, is true fear: complete and utter helplessness. Heh, keep that in mind...
...
Anyways, I'm sure you'd all get sick of me if I stayed around any longer, so I'm going to send you back to the beginning of this wretched tale... to show you how we made it to this point in the first place. And of course, the 'normal' narrator will be there, so no worries. If you've forgotten everything, or if you're a newcomer to these unusual tales, then I suggest you catch up now. From this point on, there's no going back.
... This whole "catastrophe" began but a mere two months ago, believe it or not... If you've read the previous installments, you should know exactly where it is we're headed, so let's not dilly-dally any longer!
Before we can embrace the beautiful new future...
... We have to look to the past.