Balance, a maple story fanfic

When Luminous regained consciousness to see the bloodied body of a sandy-haired girl, he thought he was dreaming.

His body did not feel like his own, a puppet. Vision hazy, maybe blurred by the smoke from raging fires all around, from his teary eyes? But he saw the body. The ground rocked beneath his feet.

Why were his hands shaking? He was… scared? Angry? Horrified?

Numbness, everywhere.

Thoughts flashed through his mind. Incoherent. A body. The body. Her body. Wounds. Blood. Guts. Stains in the ground, blood red, charred black. Despairingly clear, yet so fleeting they might have been illusions. Black flares. Inky tendrils, snaking into his vision. A face. Beautiful blue eyes. Pleading blue eyes. Terrified blue eyes. Her body. Lifeless, motionless, still warm. Gold threads marred with sickly crimson.

A face, contorted. Screaming.

Lania.

He could not move. The broken body the blood the carnage the girl. The girl who took care of him. No. No. No no no no. The girl who had taken care of him. Now it was all in the past. She was past. Ended. Passed. Even before he checked her pulse he knew. He knew.

How could he not? The body one inch away. So broken. So twisted up. Beyond repair. Beyond all functioning, or saving.

Or hope.

No air. Leadened arms, wooden legs. Move, please move. Hard to see. Tears. Anger. Despair. Unquenchable, unimaginable, unbearable, unfathomable despair.

He knew. He knew she was dead. He knew she died slowly, a wretchedly painful death.

And he knew he had killed her.

– – – – : – – – –

He buried her in the front yard. The corpse of the wretched feline Penny he also found, picked up with a stoic, calm outer shell. It took some careful planning but he managed to lay it in her arms. Her face he had covered with one of her brown scarves, unable to meet the ghastly, soulless eyes that stared through him, as if burning into his core.

The magic must have taken a lot out of him, he realised. Shoveling the dirt was a more gruelling task than he wagered, but it could be the weakness in his arms from the knowledge that he was sealing her away forever.

He went back inside. With a swift gesture he had his bloodied, dirtied robes burned to naught but powder. That he wrapped in the singed tablecloth they had their last picnic on, tied a rock to it. Sank it in the lake.

It took far longer to rid of the blood on his skin. Somehow the stains neither disappeared under the scalding water nor after he scrubbed his body raw. The face in the mirror was gaunt, hollowed, cast in shadow. The face of death. His fringe was not quite long enough to hide his red eye but he could hide it if he tilted his head just so. The pupil might have turned a more bloody red for all he knew. He did not care.

The townsfolk of Ellinia did not even suspect that a young lass, with beautiful blue eyes and sandy brown hair, lay dead a short walk away. He could hold the weapon he used to kill her in broad daylight, and they were none the wiser. He nodded greeting, they laughed, let their defenseless fairy children marvel at the way the light sparkled off the edges of his shining rod. And he let them. After all what was he but a mysterious mage in white. The mage who never smiled unless Lania was around.

And where was Lania? At home, as the clueless and ignorant would assume. Not buried six feet under. Not killed by the mage who let children around his feet.

Grendel's words held little meaning. No meaning at all. The damn mage could not tell light from dark even someone held the sun in front of his wizened eyes. Obviously his reading was far inadequate to what he had at home. In Aurora. One dimension away from the girl who lay unbreathing, surrounded by soil.

A balance, advised the incompetent fool. A balance. Between light and dark… between the two opposing forces of nature. Against good and evil. How could there be a balance? How could Luminous allow darkness to tamper his being? And how could he possibly risk the balance at all?

He left Ellinia with a certain bitter satisfaction. Let them know the brutality that she had suffered. Pay for the idiocy of the old imbecile's comment. Balance was not as easily achieved, Grendel would now know. His precious knowledge and brilliant advice would help little. With the way he begged for his apprentice back from the other dimension, Luminous almost felt sorry for him. But whatever he himself had lost, they would never know.

All they knew was him. The man who smiled as he lay waste to their homes amongst the trees, the same trees that whispered secrets while he ravaged his poor Lania.

A balance between light and dark?

– – – – : – – – –

For the next few days following that Luminous spent the nights pouring the books in Harmony. The sight of the empty guildhouses, the walls dusty and paled like bleached old bones, windows dulled like glassy eyes, made him shiver like it did every time. He hated coming back. The reddened, bloodied, defiled eye in his left socket ached like it was going to bleed at any moment. As if it was protesting being a place so holy.

Luminous smirked quietly to himself as he wandered the dusty shelves, scanning the spines of books he had not yet read and pulling out those that he thought would help his plight. He tried hard, so hard, to keep out of his mind the number of deaths on his hands. Of Lania, his poor Lania, of Vieren, of Lucia… He tried to focus on the immediate task at hand, that he might redeem himself somehow.

Sometimes, even while he read, the urge to kill would rear its ugly head. Anger — cold, controlled, icy, sickening anger — would rise to his mind like it did in the old wizard Grendel's library. Sometimes his left hand would twitch and contort for no reason, the veins in his wrist standing out from his skin like black rivulets of poison. If he was not careful, dark wisps of inky tendrils would slip into the left side of his field of vision, the groping fingers of monsters from the underworld.

Truth be told, he was terrified. He was one of the strongest Light Mages in the whole of Harmony. Even the elders told him that he was able to manipulate light in a way they never knew possible, to fashion gleaming planes of light that faded in and out of the dimension, to focus the energy into a single glowing orb that could expand faster than one could blink, blasting everything away while not harming a strand of hair on his head. And yet it took a single point of contact with the Black Mage's power to corrupt him, taint his soul, make him thirst for blood like a common demon.

Thanks to the damned, accursed, hell-bent Black Mage, Luminous had fallen from grace. The Black Mage would have been pleased at the way Luminous was taking half the world down with him. Which was why the Light Mage settled down to scan through half the books in the entire library, using almost all the candles which had not already been rotten. Desperation kept him up through the nights, fear of losing control numbed his hunger and thirst…

And faint memories of the sandy-haired girl, screaming as dark energy consumed her… they wrenched at his heart and at his nerves, dulled his mind and sent him into long stupors.

Just like the one that consumed him when he killed her. He could not remember anything that happened. His memories of that point were just a void, only fleeting flashes of the ghastly scene that he knew would follow. He hated that: teasers into the kind of horror and destruction he was able to inflict, yet being barred from anything but the worst images, leaving his imagination running wilder than a hungry bushfire, joining the horrifying pictures together. It killed him again and again. The disembodied sound of Lania choking — was she being strangled, coughing from the smoke, gurgling on blood? The feeling of sticky liquid drying around the knuckles of his fingers — did he rip out her organs or touch the blood flowing from her mouth, why was he feeling it between his thumb and forefinger, did he enjoy admiring it?

Was his trancelike self able to bring such pain upon her fragile, undeserving body?

He had awoken from one of the stupors with a letter opener in his right hand, the pointed edge parting the skin of his left wrist. Another found him with his neck an inch away from one of the spikes on his shining rod. Yet another found him on the rooftop of the tallest spire, looking down at the ground, his center of gravity terrifyingly close to the edge.

Though in the few seconds that followed, his bleary mind would struggle to make sense of what he saw, but he was hard pressed to find a reason to turn away from death.

Cold, sweet revenge against the foul evil that was the Black Mage, for turning him into the monster he was, for killing Lania!

… Or death, quick and painless, as he gave up the cause to restore peace to the world, a cause he knew saw little hope.

Or joining Lania, embracing her again, stroking her soft sandy hair, murmuring apologies in her ear, wiping away her tears…

Bitter that his own texts served no purpose at all, weakened from lack of food and water, petrified that he might choose death although he knew it was not yet his time, he decided to leave. The defeat by his own personal darkness confused him, shook him down to the soul. He decided to go back to the last place he knew where to go: to Ereve, to find the other heroes, reaffirm his faith in the Empress and what she had planned, give him a purpose — flimsy and pointless but perhaps enough to tide him through until he found a way… any way… to control the darkness that threatened to overflow.

And of course, all while keeping his secret to himself.

He did not kill Lania.

Lania was still alive.

… No. In fact, who was Lania?

He did not know anyone called Lania.

Although it sounded like a very beautiful name, fit for a very beautiful girl.

– – – – : – – – –

Three hundred years since the last time Luminous saw Phantom… and yet he could swear Phantom looked even more jovial than he did, even despite the circumstances. The damn criminal was supposed to be wrecked with grief. First Aria, and then Freud. Gone, taken in the blink of an eye by the Black Mage. That horrifying, black evil that claimed everything it wanted — and yet Phantom was here twirling his silly cane, something almost like happiness on his smirking face, and he did not seem to be any weaker. A pity, that. But the underlying question Luminous kept asking, as the noisy thief went about his daily business of bothering everything that moved, was this —

Surely the thief was not as inane as to not grieve properly for Freud?

Nobody knew how Freud died, only that he did not return. They felt Afrien's magic reverberate across the land and were sure the great Onyx dragon had survived. But no matter how hard they tried to search neither man nor dragon had appeared. And the only thing that Phantom, Freud's best friend could say, he said with a slight shrug and a sad little smile on his face. 'I guess Freud decided he'd rather die than face my glorious presence.'

Luminous watched them fuss over Phantom from the sidelines. He watched, in quiet resignation to the admirable scholar's fate, and in simmering contempt for the man in ridiculous military uniform. Phantom's best friend dead… Freud, perhaps even the best of all five of them, was dead… and all he could do was gather pity from the bystanders, all to inflate his ego? Although the thief was right about one thing: nobody who had the chance to die would choose to face him again. The choice was far clearer than he thought. No need for guessing.

Everyone seemed to be tiptoeing around the topic while Phantom preened and sowed the sympathy he wanted. Nobody wanted a fight to break out between the two heroes. They all hushed their voices, cast slightly wary glances as he watched them through gaps in his fringe. All except Phantom, of course, who had apparently made it its life's goal to make Luminous go mad. Perhaps, Luminous wagered, perhaps before his darkness did. He could feel the thief watching him out of the corner of his eye while he made small talk with the knights of Ereve. No doubt trying to say something to goad him into conflict.

Normally he would have let himself the satisfaction of going toe-to-toe with the thief, putting him back in his place.

Today he just felt so tired.

He kept to the side of the great hall, keeping his head down, ignoring the inane chatter that continued. The knights were definitely surprised, and Phantom perhaps even more, that there had been no verbal sparring. Thankfully he managed to escape, his walk uneventful, and settled back in his study. The room that had been prepared for his temporary stay was bare, save a desk and a chest of drawers and a simple bed.

He set the books in his hand down on the desk and prepared for a long night of reading. Unwanted thoughts, flares of red and ghostly screams of girls who were not there filled his mind, and he was hard pressed to focus on the pages before him. Yet now that he was in Ereve, now he might stand a sliver of a chance of finding his answer —

'You're looking particularly glum this fine day, Sunshine.'

Luminous ignored the voice that purred like silk, slightly thrown off that the thief had appeared without him even knowing.

'It's positively glaring, that sulk of yours. I'm sure I can help rid of that with the wide range of skills I have.'

'I will stop sulking when you excuse yourself from my sight, pesky thief.'

'You know I will always be generous enough to let my glamour rub off on you, Sunshine.'

'My life will be worse if you rub your glamour off on the world.'

As if his life was not yet bad enough as it was. Luminous sent a caustic smirk his way. Almost immediately upon his arrival in Ereve, the incorrigible thief had swooped down like a vulture to carrion. By now even the dimmest of people would realise that the constant stream of inane remarks were less than appreciated.

Of course, Phantom was just being his usual moronic, obtuse self, but the daft remarks made cold seething rage bubble inside of Luminous for another reason. It was the thief's sheer ignorance of his inner maelstrom of regret and guilt. How could anyone not see? For it showed. The dull glaze across his eyes. The darkened rings around them. The red pupil that glowed a nauseating crimson even through his snowy hair.

Luminous hated his reflection. In every mirror he looked into, he saw the red eye — his red eye. Half of his face smiling crookedly, spitefully. The beastly grin that he was sure he wore as he killed Lania… Transcendents, surely even Phantom should have noticed by now, the sickening bloody pupil the same shade as if he were to ram a ruby into the socket and leave it there. No matter how he tried to hide it he was sure the thief's roving gaze should have noticed it already. If he had the reputation of sieving the poorest gems from even the best duplicates… surely he could see?

'Particularly cold and stuffy today… then again you always are,' hummed Phantom easily, leaning against the edge of the desk. 'Your face looks terrible, you know… did they forget to add sugar into your tea?'

'Is it really as bad as you say, or are you just trying to spite me?'

'How can you doubt my honesty?' Phantom looked dejected. 'I'm quite sure you look especially ruffled today. Hmm. As if you… as if…'

'As if I was slapped in the face?'

'I wish I was the one to do that… but not quite there yet…' Phantom peered into drawers and shelves, poking around what he had no business in.

'Assaulted on the way here?'

'Unfortunate that you avoided that fate, but no…'

Luminous felt his knuckles tighten. 'As if I killed a person?' he chuckled quietly, carefully keeping the anger out of his voice.

'Right, right,' smiled Phantom, brightening. He raised his cane and jabbed it at Luminous. 'As if you've taken my place as the most highly sought-after criminal.'

'The day I resort to doing something as petty as your line of work will be the day you demonstrate even a shred of righteousness.'

'But didn't you just say you might have killed some—'

'I was suggesting a reason for why I looked particularly cold and stuffy, you dimwitted crook.'

Phantom paused, contemplating.

'You know, you do have the look.'

Luminous had to force himself not to throw the book in his hands straight into Phantom's face. 'The look? What look might you be talking about?'

'Well…' Phantom hummed, taking his time coming up with an answer. 'I don't have a lot of experience but I'm quite certain… well no, I'm not very sure...'

'I already have enough bad encounters with you, scoundrel. Be gracious and lend me some hope that I might have a decent one.'

Phantom tapped his cane against his chin. 'Oh fine, fine. Can't resist the possibility of letting you realise that I'm not as bad as —'

'Phantom.'

'When will you humour me even slightly?' He sighed before finally relenting. 'You've got the guilty look of someone committing a crime for the first time. Remorse, maybe. Sadness. You're upset with yourself.'

Luminous found his throat dry.

'Whatever you did, it was bad,' Phantom continued. The unease in his gut had slipped by unnoticed. Thankfully. 'That's how all criminals feel at the beginning. Oh my god, I can't believe I did that. I'm a horrible person,' Phantom whined for effect. 'It's a rather common thing to do. Most petty criminals let their conscience get the better of them after one or two heists. That's why being a thief is an art, too.'

'An art?' Luminous looked up, revulsed and unable to stand any more. He found his voice louder than he was used to, and just a little more shaky. 'Of course, being a criminal and wreaking havoc on innocents is an art. Are you daft, Phantom? Perhaps you ought to steal some morality to make up for —'

'Maybe you did kill a man,' Phantom murmured conspiratorially, voice low as if implying a deeper, darker truth. His eyes glinted amethyst in the half-darkness as the shadows of dusk started creeping across the floor.

He knew?

Luminous found the even gaze too piercing to hold.

He could not possibly have…

Could he?

'And did you feel that way in the beginning too, Phantom? What a surprise that you even know what justice is —'

When Luminous finally had regained his composure and was feeling sufficiently admonished for not being able to meet Phantom's eyes, he looked up to find the room empty, the sky outside the same color as dried blood just as the last sliver of the sun slid below the horizon.

He stood there for a moment, dazed, stunned beyond words. Then he cursed under his breath. He growled. He swore and struck out at the stack of parchments on his desk and toppled the shelves of books in his study, sending volumes tumbling, parchments fluttering to the ground.

How could Phantom have known? He had spoken to nobody about this, never even mulled over it under bated breath while he straightened his mangled thoughts in the solitude of his room. Nobody in Ereve knew. Even he himself, if he deceived himself hard enough, might believe that he had not actually killed the beautiful sandy-haired girl and it was all a terrible, gut-wrenching nightmare that he might somehow wake up from.

How could Phantom possibly guess?

All the nosy thief had were accusations. Gut feelings from a gut that served no purpose but to support his frame as he broke into the houses of innocent victims and steal their livelihoods away. He had no credibility as a hero, and even less as a thief. Phantom had no right to judge Luminous on baseless claims and his logic that thieving was an art.

If thieving was an art, then murder was a ritual. Luminous sank into the only remaining upright chair, chest heaving from his frustration, burying his face in his hands. He scoffed bitterly, somehow finding it horrifyingly amusing that the thought would come to mind. Murder… a ritual? How complicated was it? Kill the living. Bury the dead. End of story.

No. Luminous felt the smile across his lips turn into a grimace, felt his jaws grind against each other. His head throbbed. It definitely was far more complicated than that. Erase the evidence, get rid of anything that may link the murder to him. Remove the murder weapon from the scene. Bury the body deep enough so the wild beasts in the forests would not get to them. And just for Lania, perhaps not so for anyone else, make sure there was a marker to at least acknowledge her broken body —

The grave.

Even Phantom, who was daft enough as it is, could see that Luminous was distraught, far more distraught than usual. Which meant the murder, if any at all, was recent. The easiest way to check would be to ask around, if not in Ereve then in Orbis, if not in Victoria Island. Ask locals of nearby towns, ask if they happened to encounter a snowy white magician. Even if Phantom did not know who had died, all he had to do was to look for a grave that was shallow. A grave dug in haste. One that was fresh.

That was not particularly challenging to find, given how he had already torn up Ellinia in his despair. The entire area was a bullseye, attracting attention from miles around. Curse it, how could he have been so careless? The girl he had buried in full view, left attention-grabbing white flowers across the grave, laid her straw hat with her red ribbon on top of the heap.

He had practically made the pesky thief's job way easier than it already was. Practically paved the way to Lania's grave, and anyone with only a single blind eye could find it. All the thief had to do was call down the Knights to investigate and it would be the end of him.

And he would have none of that.

He needed his revenge. And remaining with the Heroes was the only way he knew to ensure it.

Luminous stood up roughly, angrily. The shining rod, the murder weapon, was a familiar and comforting weight in his hands as he stormed out the room.

He was certain he was going to stop Phantom before he found the body. And he was very tempted to let Phantom experience the extent of the pain that Lania had gone through. It was far too tempting, though. Not to mention it was the perfect crime. Permanently clean the too-smug smirk off his face once and for all.

– – – – : – – – –

Ellinia still smelled faintly of smoke and ash. The great trees still loomed up, trying to reach for the heaven he would never be permitted to enter, the lower sections of the trunks singed from a certain hellish magic.

At this time, at the dark of night, the quaint forest town was deserted. If not for the howls of a crying baby he would have suspected that everyone had already fled lest they face his wrath once more. Trying to calm his pounding heart, he hefted the shining rod, making sure the tip could be seen over his shoulder, and knocked on the flimsy door of the first house he saw. He knocked again, and again. He caught a movement in the corner of his eye and whirled around to see the curtains inside the house billow just slightly. Exactly as if someone had moved away from the window in haste.

'I know you are in there.' Luminous reached out and used the tip of his shining rod to tap on the glass window. The sharp ping of metal off glass rang loud in the still forest. There was no answer. He smiled, and knew that his impatience would leak out through his smile and seep into his voice. 'The door is flimsy and I can easily sear a gaping hole in one of these trunks… again.'

'Please,' came the quivering reply. 'Grendel isn't around. If you're looking for him he —'

'Come out. Answer my questions honestly and I will spare you. And your child with the white hair.'

'My son Wing didn't even do anything —'

'Before I change my mind.'

The door carefully opened just a fraction. Luminous jammed his weapon in the crack and pulled, slamming the door wide open to reveal a terrified red-haired fairy. He smirked as the lady let out a squeak, her wings trembling from fright. Any more and she would have fainted on the spot.

'Whatever my son did, I apologise. He's just young and he doesn't know what he's doing, I promise —'

'Have you seen a thief pass by?'

The fairy was stunned into silence at the abrupt question. Luminous waited two seconds before slamming his weapon against the door.

'Answer me! A thief!'

The loud crash made the door break off one set of hinges and sent the fairy into a panic. 'I d-don't know! I h-haven't s-seen anyone!'

'If I find out you are lying —'

'I swear on m-my life! I don't know who y-y-you're asking for!'

Luminous smirked inwardly. Her frantic begging assured him that lying was the last thing on her mind. 'A thief. Wears a stupid raven hat. Blond hair. Purple eyes. Wears white…'

The fairy's son, the little brat called Wing, appeared around the door. Immediately Luminous raised his shining rod and he froze in place, lifting his hands to show he meant no harm.

'If you're looking for Phantom, we didn't see him,' he said, eyes hard and cold. 'I watched the town from the general store pretty much the entire day. Phantom doesn't come by here. In fact nobody walked by with blond hair at all.'

Luminous met the fairy's gaze evenly until the boy looked away. Thankfully for him, he seemed to be telling the truth.

'Nobody at all?'

'The only one with blond hair around these parts is Lania,' he said, haltingly. 'We haven't seen her in days —'

That was more than what he needed. The boy's words sent a skewer through his being. Luminous spun on his heel and leaped off the balcony, landing deftly on a lower branch before dropping down to the next house. The forest had gone quieter than it had already been, and there was only that faint distressed sobbing to ease the suffocating, deathly silence.

In the next house, and the next, regardless of gender or age, they all said the same thing. There was no sight of a man with blond hair, decked in white, with a stupid feathery raven mask on his head. Whether they knew Phantom by name or just by looks, nobody had seen him at all.

As he turned and stalked from the last house at the foot of the trees, he could have burned the entire town to ash in his rage. Surely Phantom would not have vanished from his room just like that and not followed up with anything? The damn thief was too nosy to retreat to his ostentatious flying vessel and sit around twiddling his thumbs now that he had a possibility of blackmail. Transcendents, Luminous hated thinking about the smugness on Phantom's face and in his eyes as the thief gloated over the trouble he might land his arch-enemy in. He shuddered, partly in indignation and partly in disgust at having been discovered.

So where was the sneaky crook? Not in Ellinia… either that or he had already came and left, buying their silence with promises of gold and jewels. Surely not. For all the practicality of a magical teleporting ship, any of Phantom's efforts prior to Luminous's arrival would have been moot. Luminous was certain he was intimidating enough to terrorize the truth out of Ellinia's inhabitants.

Luminous growled. If the townsfolk were telling the truth, Phantom must have had something else up those long sleeves of his. He would confront the damn thief about it once he had the chance, squeeze his plan out of him even if it meant turning the man into a pile of ash.

But for now, since Grendel was not in Ellinia… it was the perfect time to swallow his bruised pride and try looking in the old geezer's library to see if he had anything of worth.

Quickly, Luminous teleported from branch to branch, carefully avoiding any of the houses, shinnying up ropes and vines until he reached the library at the canopy of the vertical city. As promised, the rickety old library was empty, with only the huge prism in the center of the library shining opalescent colors and casting an otherworldly halo of light on the wooden floor. Almost as grand and majestic as the crystals in Harmony, mused Luminous, allowing himself a smile. Fitting his shining rod to the keyhole in the door, he focused and melted the lock with a blinding, yet thankfully familiar, beam of light, letting it swing open as he strode into the musty room.

It was but the work of a moment before he had searched through all the books on the first floor. Like in Harmony, too many books were focussed on light magic and hardly none about dark magic, and even lesser on possession by demon powers or anything similar to the Black Mage's. A quick but thorough search of the second floor confirmed the same thing. Luminous felt frustration bubble at the back of his mind — oh, how he despised this feeling of helplessness — but steeled himself to keep his emotions in check while he carefully leafed through book after book.

And found nothing. He put the book in his hands down and forced himself to relax. Despite all his talk, Grendel had nothing useful so far.

There was, however, one more shelf. Out of desperation, which he tried to hide by telling himself that he was gracious enough to give the old wizard a final chance, he clambered up the ladder and began leafing through the books.

It caught his eye immediately. Almost as if it was waiting to be found. The light shone perfectly onto its pink spine, the silver engraved letters slightly worn, thick as a spellbook and yet light enough to be carried by a child.

Faerie Tales of Could Have.

Luminous faltered and lingered by the shelf, staring at the book before carefully sliding it out. It was as worn as the day he borrowed it and there was a light sheen of dust on the top of the book. So he was the only one who had taken a liking to this simple book, amidst all the other academic work, and brought it home — home to his dear Lania as he sat on her bed and read to her, all the tales of could have, would have, should have been.

It was her favorite. She would pester him to read the stories again, and again, and again… He stared at the worn cover, admiring the cursive letters and lightly tracing the ridges of the letters, feeling the smooth silver change to fabric back to silver back to fabric. And if he did not know better, he would expect to see a final chapter there, too, with a plotline he knew far too well.

I could have saved her.

The thought jarred him. The thought that he could have avoided it all if he had told her the truth, packed up, said goodbye, and never saw her again… He hurriedly put the book back, teeth gritted and that unfathomable rage building up in him again, that unquenchable raging fire fuelled with thoughts of the damn girl and her damn sandy hair.

Lania.

'Luminous?'

Phantom.

'Why, what a surprise. Fancy seeing you here,' smiled Phantom easily, perched on the top of the bookshelf, directly above him.

Luminous merely looked up, his face a mix of utter wrath and horror. The damn thief was not supposed to be here!

'You look particularly red-handed tonight, Sunshine.'

'What in transcendent's name are you doing here,' whispered Luminous, hands trembling with such fury they shook even though he had clenched them into tight fists.

'It seems I must've done something righteous,' the grinning thief continued with a wave of his cane, as if Luminous had not said a word, 'Since you're apparently doing something similar to my line of work —'

'I am not stealing!' Luminous snapped.

Phantom shrugged. 'Call it what you may. Nobody but a thief breaks into locked houses with valuable magic gems and priceless volumes in the middle of the night.'

'Turn tail and get lost. You have no more business here than I do.'

'Ah. But I have interest in the girl who hasn't shown up in Ellinia for a while.'

Luminous froze. And then it clicked: the reason why Phantom vanished from his room so quickly. The thief had indeed left his room… exactly because he wanted Luminous to worry and fret and do whatever soul searching first-time criminals did. If Luminous had nothing weighing on his conscience, he would have stayed in his room… yet if it was not the case, he would have tried to pursue Phantom, or to right his wrongs before Phantom found out.

All the damn thief had to do was wait. Insinuate something, anything, that tugged at Luminous's own conscience, wait for it to fester and grow, and follow Luminous out if he moved. And Luminous had stupidly gone and led him right to it, straight to the burned forests of Ellinia in his haste. During his shouting and interrogation, almost everyone had asked about Lania.

'I'm surprised that boy Wing knew me. Does my reputation precede me that far?'

Of course Phantom would have heard.

'How dare you,' Luminous whispered.

He had been played.

'So you do have a part to play in her disappearance,' chuckled Phantom, leaning on his cane. 'I would suspect that… but I could swear you're so rigid that you would rather starve than steal a loaf of rotting bread from someone's windowsill. It comes as a very big surprise that you followed in my footsteps —'

'I am nothing like you, Phantom,' Luminous snarled. He was vaguely aware of that uncontrollable fury, creeping up on him like a winter dusk, dark and swift. He let a tendril snake down his arm and coil around his wrist and relished the way it made his anger feel like heaven. 'You do things of your own accord, you corrupt, sly, deceitful —'

'But I've never killed a girl before. Much less one who wasn't any of the Black Mage's henchmen.' He smiled triumphantly. 'One point for me, ten points from you.'

'You would have if you lost control of —' Luminous stopped himself. Nobody was supposed to know. Nobody… much less Phantom. He could still salvage this. Nobody needed to know until it had all blown over.

Phantom laughed at the silence that followed. 'My dear Sunshine, I am always in perfect control. I haven't stole a single thing since I joined the heroes.' He spread his arms and smiled wider, and Luminous twitched in such raw anger he feared he might lash out at Phantom and destroy the town of Ellinia yet again.

'You will not understand my —'

'To further elaborate my ability to control… The only things I steal now are yours, just to see just how mad you can get.'

Luminous blinked, and there was his shining rod, being twirled like a cane in the damn thief's fingers, moonlight and the light from the gem reflecting off the polished surface.

A red veil engulfed his vision. 'I will send your soul into the depths of the netherworld!'

Phantom laughed. Luminous felt his features contort into an animal-like snarl but before he could even let the bloodlust take over him completely, the thief was steps away, tossing his shining rod back to him.

'Well you'll need this to kill me, won't you? But first you have to catch me first.'

Luminous snatched the shining rod out of the air, growling and feeling the anger rushing through his veins. The room was empty, the door still ajar the way he left it, and the damn thief was outside at the window waving in, still grinning that impossibly snarky grin. With another growl and a blast of dark energy he blew the window out and tore after the thief.

'Halt and face me,' snarled Luminous. 'You coward!'

The thief was asking for it. Begging for it even. Anything he dished out, Phantom deserved it completely. Luminous smiled nastily to himself as he pulled darkness from the air, wrapped it around his thoughts and sent bursts of energy, concentrated and jagged, falling from the sky like fangs. He sent the thief sprawling and scrambling to duck the cruel onslaught of assaults, one of the fangs cutting just unfortunately too late to take off one of Phantom's arms.

'I don't want to be killed, you know,' he hollered as he lifted his cane and spun upwards in a flurry of cards. Luminous knew the forest better than he, and sidetracked through the undergrowth, which was less snared with vines and snares of thorny branches. When Phantom leaped out of the foliage and into the clearing on the other side, Luminous was ready and waiting. With a roar, he opened a rift up exactly where Phantom was to land, the insides bubbling with unholy dark energy that simmered as if it was fading in and out of the dimension. He saw the thief's eyes widen, smiled as he lifted his hand, for even the best of thieves could not change direction in midair.

'Wouldn't you find it suspicious that your blood-thirsty pursuer suddenly stopped firing attacks at you, Sunshine?' smiled Phantom, and Luminous spun around to see the thief — unharmed and unhurt! — just before he turned and disappeared into the forest.

He growled, furious at being outsmarted even in the sliver of time in which they had run through the thicket of vines. But the forest was thinning, the ground getting harder.

They were running northwards, towards Perion and its bare rocks, and Luminous would lose his advantage. But after a while more of running, he realised that the forest was dead silent, save his angry snarls as he exhaled and inhaled for breath. Not a chirp from the crickets nor the buzz of the cicada or the almost-soundless taps of a thief's footsteps through the undergrowth.

'So you would kill to keep your secret, huh, Sunshine.'

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once. He scanned the canopy, the lower branches, the undergrowth, relying on his left eye to see through the heavy veil of darkness.

Nobody.

'You know what damage I am capable of dealing, do you not, you pesky thief?'

'Enough to kill a girl, Luminous. But isn't that enough?'

Where. Was. Phantom? It was impossible that his voice resounded from everywhere… The thought of Lania, blooded bruised broken awoke something deep inside him.

'How dare you. Know that I did not intend to.'

'Oh, so you killed her by accident then? Use your light magic to spill her blood? Is that it?'

'It was not my fault! The Black Mage was to blame! He —'

'You got corrupted didn't you? Your eye, that bright ruby red. I'm surprised nobody asked you about it. It's almost like the Black Mage's, you know, if you squint just so —'

'Shut up!' Luminous brought his right hand to his left cheek, trembling, contorting his fingers and clawing at the socket. 'I did not have a choice! His power, when I —'

'You do have a bit of him inside you. I knew it. Did you accept it willingly, Luminous? How hard did you fight to keep it at bay?' The silhouette of Phantom appeared between the trees, smiling, purple eyes glinting in the pallid moonlight.

'I tried, Phantom! You do not understand his power —'

'I understand that you failed. What a disappointment.'

'No!' Luminous roared. Enough… it was not his fault, it was the Black Mage, his power, eating past his defences, he was too weak, he was too weak. The silhouette flickered and faded in the blast of black fire that he sent its way, but the smile and those judgmental eyes lingered just a split second too long, haunting him.

'And you expect me to believe that when the evidence is all around you?'

'Of what? The Black Mage's corrupting me? The evil inside me?'

'Of the murder, you dimwitted mage.'

'There was no murder,' seethed Luminous shakily.

'Really?'

No… No. Phantom was right.

'You are dead,' Luminous whispered, the breath catching in his throat.

The shining rod clanged on the ground.

And Lania was everywhere.

Soulless blue eyes. Sandy hair matted with fresh blood. Bones and joints, bent at horrifying angles. The Lanias were and were not at the same time, in every gap in the trees, on every branch.

'Admit it already, Sunshine,' Lania said, her broken jaws moving awkwardly, to talk, to smile.

'It was not my fault!'

'You know that's not true.'

'I tried…'

'Not hard enough, it seems.' Lania chuckled, the ghastly voices low and silky like a thief's, high and shrieking and piercing like how he always remembered.

'Lania please —'

'How long did you take, Luminous? To kill her?'

'I do not know! I could not remember anything!'

Her cold glassy eyes hardened. 'Surely you have some memory of it.'

'I was in a trance —'

'You didn't fight it.'

'I did! Transcendents, Lania, please believe me. I tried —'

'Sure you did.'

Luminous fell to his knees. 'I did not even know it was coming. It had not appeared for so long —'

'What hadn't appeared?'

'The darkness… the evil… the Black Mage's magic —'

'It was a long time, Luminous. You vanished from sight for months.'

'Lania, wait —'

She shrugged, disjointed shoulders moving awkwardly, muscles twitching. 'Why didn't you say it?'

'I was afraid, Lania —'

'Afraid for your life? What about hers? Not afraid you'd kill her because you couldn't control such a terrifying power?'

'No, no, no, Lania please listen I feared you would —'

'Leave? Why yes, Luminous, she would have. It's your fault she's dead now isn't it?'

'I did not mean for it to happen —'

'You knew. All along you knew.'

Luminous fought to draw breath, quell the flurry of words stuck in his throat, as Lanias staggered closer. He could see the flecks of blood on her unblemished cheek. Remember how her neck felt in his hand. Hear her screams.

'You knew all along that she might die because of you.'

Luminous had no words to say. 'Lania… please…'

'And then she did.'

'I tried…'

Lania's sneers cut him to the bone. 'It was a risk you were willing to take. Was she worth it?'

'No, no, no no no —'

'You can't convince even me.'

'I swear. Lania, please…'

Her smiles grew wider, wider, so wide her bottom lips began to tear, blood, blood all that blood… 'On whose life? Yours? Lania's?'

'I… I…'

The sound of footsteps. Luminous found himself crouched on the ground, hands around his ears, panting, horrified, terrified. The red veil across his vision was flickering, and when he looked up the bloodied and soiled shoes of the Lanias were gone, and all that was left was the white, polished ones of Phantom, standing just a distance away.

He had tucked his cane back into his belt. In his eyes was the coldest and most piteous look Luminous had ever seen.

'So you are just as evil as I thought,' he said. And turned to leave.

Luminous stopped breathing.

'How dare you,' he whispered, after Phantom had walked a short distance away.

Phantom turned, chuckling dryly. 'I have every right. I know a damned person when I see one.'

Luminous felt a shiver pass through him. Oh… so he was damned. Might as well take Phantom down to hell with him then. Maybe he might see more of the contorted expression on Phantom's face, too. Like the one as the thief clutched at the wicked black hook protruding from his shoulder, impaling him on the bark of a tree, one foot above the ground.

He relished the sound of Phantom's scream and his agony lent strength to his feet, helped focus the maelstrom of thoughts in his mind. All that was left, was raw, untamed anger.

'Damned, am I?'

Phantom struggled, blood staining his right sleeve and torso. 'Playing dirty, huh.'

Luminous walked up calmly to Phantom, gripping his shining rod and angling it so the points hovered just above the skin. Luminous knew how terrifying it was looking down on the pointed edges of the shining rod. Now it was Phantom's turn.

'You know, I never wanted to be evil.' He smiled coolly. 'It was never my intention. It is all your fault now.'

'What is?' murmured Phantom.

Luminous sneered and patted Phantom's cheek. 'Not so cocky now that I might kill you at once, are you? Well it is your fault… for bringing out this monster.'

He indicated his red eye, his black veins, the way his shining rod pulsed a sickening bloodied red. The eye in his socket was exactly the shade of red that was flowing out of Phantom's shoulder right now, an aura of the same glowing shade pulsing around him. Oh, Luminous knew alright, he had seen it when he disposed of his clothes in the lake that time. It made him look menacing. Possessed, almost.

'Thanks to all the fear you showed me earlier, I have lost control. And now… you see a glimmer of what happened.'

'I thought you… went into a trance,' Phantom gritted out.

'I did. This is just before the final cliff, before the point of no return. Still the point with "perfect control", as you would say.' Luminous grinned.

'What happened in the battle, Luminous?' Phantom whispered, eyes cold. Pity he showed no trace of fear.

'Of course you would like to know. You missed the final showdown.' chuckled Luminous. He waved his left hand nonchalantly, the black veins stark against his pale skin. 'Some of the Black Mage's magic corrupted me when I was trying to force him back into the barrier that your best friend died to build.'

'If you could seal the Black Mage once, you can do it to his power,' growled Phantom.

Luminous laughed. He laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes, ran down his cheeks in rivulets. 'Seal his power? Why of course, Phantom. An absolutely wonderful idea. Makes you wonder why I have not already done it, hmm?'

No response.

'But to your credit, you pesky thief… it is not the worst idea that I have been offered. That fool Grendel told me to achieve a balance… which is impossible in its own right. Even in theory it is almost impossible…'

'You haven't tried.'

'I do not need to try, Phantom!' Luminous roared. The forest shook with the power that pulsed beneath his feet. He stalked the clearing, shining rod raised, pulling dark bolts of energy out of thin air and culling tree after tree, burning the shrubs in his way. 'I cannot control this — how can anyone control this? I killed Lania, who loved me more than I loved her. She was like a daughter to me, Phantom. She took me in without knowing my name, despite feeling the darkness inside me, even though she knew nothing about me. I would not kill her even in my darkest nightmares.'

'You can stop it.'

'Stop this? Stop this?' Luminous laughed wildly, eyes roving hungrily across the hellish fires in the undergrowth. 'You provoke this maleficence and expect me to control it? You have outdone yourself, pesky thief.'

'You're the only one who can.'

'How?' Luminous slowed down in the middle of the clearing and gestured to the empty space all around. He spun on his heel to face the only remaining oak and the writhing thief pinned to its trunk. 'I only know one way that makes more sense than an accursed balance.'

'Do it then.' Phantom coughed blood. 'Better than killing someone else.'

'I might kill you before I do "it", pesky thief.' He laughed. 'Look at this power. I cannot control it. Yet I have the power to destroy the entire town of Ellinia in five minutes. Aurora's best light mage, tainted with the merest fractions of the Black Mage's power… already so destructive. Can you imagine when the power corrupts me entirely for good?'

'Then fix it!'

'But you see, Phantom, the only way I know to rid the world of my power is by killing myself. Rid the world of this curse. Once and for all. Quick and easy.' Luminous sighed and let his gaze turn gentle as he admired the slither of ink running down his arm. 'Nobody can stop me… but me. Isn't that right, Phantom?'

Luminous chuckled to himself at the irony. His shoulders shook from the force behind his laugh, but it was an act as he watched Phantom out of the corner of his eye. In a blink Phantom teleported a foot away from the tree and landed in a heap arms first, letting out a cry of pain as the impact shot up his ruined arm. Luminous hummed and turned to face him. 'Put your cane away, Phantom.'

'I can still take you down, Luminous,' he growled.

He smiled and wiped a tear from his eye. His good eye. With a languid wave of his hand he opened a blinding portal of light, so swiftly that the thief did not even have time to flinch, and sent gleaming spears towards the thief. He ignored the shout of pain and instead waved his other hand. Black chains materialised around Phantom's neck and tightened, just tight enough to make the thief's head throb from lack of air, slack enough to keep him alive.

'So much for that, Master Thief,' smiled Luminous. He regarded the gasping thief on the ground in front of him and hummed contemplatively.

'Luminous… you'll… regret this…'

'Another reason why I ought to give up.' Luminous smiled and squatted down. 'I am a threat to you, a threat to everyone around me. No, I am a threat to almost all of humanity. Of course, except the Black Mage. See? I am useless in this state. In fact if after this I choose to give in to the darkness inside me it would make no difference at all.'

'Don't…'

He turned to the gasping thief, his twitches growing weaker and his eyes going glassy. 'Don't kill myself? And leave this evil here in this world? Why not?'

'I can… still see… some good in you.'

He scoffed and ruffled the thief's hair. 'Never knew you were such an optimist. Fine. Humour me, then. Even after I have killed Lania, endangered the lives of the fairies in the town nearby, and strangled you half to death, in what ways am I still good?'

'You know that killing Lania… is wrong. Felt guilty didn't you… angry at my tricking you.'

'A criminal's fear of being caught.'

'Using light magic just now… still inside you… somewhere.'

'Residual magic.' he snorted.

'Perfect control… of both types.' Phantom gritted out, smiling blearily as he pulled on the chains.

'I can barely even control the darkness inside me. Do not be absurd. I will give in more and more with time.'

'You lived with Lania… for months. Nobody could find you… and you didn't kill her.'

Luminous felt his jaw tighten. 'I lost control in the end.'

'But I am… alive,' mumbled Phantom.

'For now,' corrected Luminous.

'When you saw Lania just now… you cried. Guilt.'

'And so?'

'You wish to… atone. The hardest… criminals… would never do that.'

Luminous kept silent. He regarded the prone form before him and saw again, the eyes dimmed and unfocused, the eyes of the dying. Not sky blue, not Lania's, but eyes of a person nonetheless, even if it was of his enemy.

'And you… are secretly hoping… that some of the things I say… are true…'

'Slick-tongued, conniving, pesky little thief,' he growled and released the chains, turning away as Phantom coughed and gulped air back into his lungs. He pulled the thief's cane out his belt and tossed it into the undergrowth, angling his shining rod and pointing it at his throat, guiding him back down to the ground. 'Do not move. I have not changed my mind about killing you.'

'The best part,' gasped Phantom. 'Is that you don't want… this to happen to anyone else. Your dying to prevent harm… that's the best part. You're good inside, Luminous. I promise.'

Luminous laughed. 'This sounds suspiciously like the accursed balance that Grendel was talking about.'

'It's true, you know,' murmured Phantom, chest heaving. 'Every person has a mix… of good and bad things inside him.'

'That is rich coming from the man who steals as a pastime.'

'Even Freud. Even Aria… They had good points and bad points.'

'Our scholar Freud and The Empress Aria? I find that quite hard to believe.'

'They did… They just didn't show it…'

'None of them had uncontrollable urges to kill anyone, did they?'

'Hey. Not everyone had the chance… to go head to head with old Blackie there.'

Luminous growled and moved his shining rod away. 'Fine. Fine. Assuming I do have two halves then. How do you expect me to work this out? And mind you if you say balance I will kill —'

'A balance,' said Phantom immediately, rubbing at the chafed marks and reddened skin.

'Pesky thief.' Luminous glowered. 'You are not helping.'

'Some bandage would help…' Phantom hissed as he closed his eyes, as if trying to dull the pain by sheer willpower.

Then Luminous saw it. Blood, red like his eye, all over Phantom's blazing white uniform. Terrible wounds, raw and bleeding. A broken body. And again, he was the one who did it. Luminous felt his eyes widen. He had done it again, with full knowledge of what he was doing, with perfect control… 'Transcendents… I am sorry…'

'Don't get all mushy on me,' laughed Phantom as Luminous hurried into the trees to fetch the cane. It was slightly scratched but ought to still function perfectly. He nudged it at Phantom's good hand and was surprised to see Phantom take it with a nod of thanks and lower it to the ground.

'Are you not going to heal yourself? What with your stolen skills and all?'

'I stole another skill to replace it,' he chuckled weakly. 'Needed something for the phantom Lanias.'

Luminous stared disbelievingly at the thief. Phantom had engaged in battle with another hero with no backup plan and no contingency one in case he got injured. He was signing a death wish.

Somehow he found it funny. Phantom, the most reckless of them all, had gone head to head with a man corrupted by the Black Mage's fury and power… and then he realised Phantom had never fired a single card or attack in return.

Phantom had truly put everything down to trust, and faith. Trust in him, despite all his shortcomings, and given him a second chance. And faith that he was still good. The damn thief, as cunning and manipulative as he was, had literally dragged him back from the spiral of insanity and the cliff from which death beckoned.

He hung his head and laughed so hard, harder than he had ever laughed before.

'Luminous, are you… Oh gods, please don't cry. It's so weird to see you cry… Alright, your tears are stinging my wound. Luminous stop, please. I'm begging you… ouch ouch ouch —'

– – – – : – – – –

When Luminous regained some composure he healed Phantom as best as he could, stopping the bleeding with his holy magic. And Phantom did nothing but smile at the glowing light, evidence of the mage hanging on to all that was good.

With much effort and Phantom's arm around his shoulder — he was not used to such close proximity with anyone, let alone with the damn thief — he pulled them both to their feet. Phantom groaned softly but shrugged it off. 'Just a scratch,' he smiled.

'Your damn ego will be the death of you one day, if you refuse treatment when you actually desperately need it.'

'Oh please, Sunshine. I just need to steal someone else's skills again. Preferably a bishop's…'

'Incorrigible.'

'Say… Luminous?'

'What is it now.'

And Phantom asked to see the grave.

– – – – : – – – –

It took longer than expected to find the path in the darkness, even longer since he had a weakened Phantom leaning heavily on one side. Once he found it it became easier, taking turns he was more familiar with than with the dark and unholy power that lay dormant and quietened inside him.

His breath caught in his throat at the sight.

The solitary little cottage stood calmly in the clearing, as sturdy as the day he saw it. As if nothing had ever changed. Fireflies buzzed in the air, lighting up the glade with a faint, ethereal glow. Luminous found it too hard to walk, and had to halt just mere footsteps away from the wooden fence they had put up together. It was the scene he'd only dreamed of in the past few days, one he was convinced he would never let himself see again, one he was too guilty to revisit.

It was almost otherworldly. So surreal, yet tinged with such familiarity and comfort that he was seized with an inexplicable urge. As if he could go back to the past and everything would be back to normal by walking through the simple wooden gate. Nothing would have been wrong. No demons, no unholy power, no deaths.

And if he just called her name…

She would come running, rescue the heavy grocery bags from his aching fingers, remind him to wipe his feet on the doormat, pull him into the house, chide him for buying full cream milk instead of skimmed. She would pop up from behind a mound of snow, scream his name with all the lungpower of a young and cheeky lass as she hurled snowballs relentlessly in his face, and when he came down with a cold and a fever the next day she would feed him broth and chide him for being so weak. She would appear by his side and take his hand on a musty summer's day, pulling him along to the lake a stone's throw away and push him off balance despite all manner of protestations, laughing as he spluttered exasperation to hide his revelling in the refreshing coolness of water, in good company and a comforting fullness in his heart.

'Hey,' Phantom nudged him gently, tearing him from his stupor. He knew the thief was doing it intentionally, pulling him from the mess of thoughts that belonged in a time far too long gone and past. 'Come on, Sunshine. Help me over there so I can pay my respects —'

'You are going to get fixed up first,' he murmured, still somehow ashamed that he was showing Phantom care — Phantom, of all people! They strode past the grave, the child-sized plot and its freshly upturned soil, with the crude cross marker he had fashioned hurriedly with twine and wooden sticks, the straw hat and the red ribbon, the pile of white flowers and their petals, torn away and strewn across the ground like teardrops of a dying angel.

Phantom kept his eyes away from it until they were both ready, and allowed Luminous to guide him inside. Luminous sat him down and quickly rinsed the half-healing wound with saline, hushing Phantom when he hissed in pain. He bound the shoulder tightly and was satisfied when only a small patch of red showed through the bandage. Then he cleaned the other smaller burns from his light magic and applied ointment before wrapping them up.

'If any of the ladies get turned off because they see these scars —'

'Then they are not worth your time.'

Phantom laughed. 'Since when do you care about relationships?'

Luminous just scoffed.

They got up and went back outside. By now dawn was breaking, a pale shade of gold, mixed with sunfire yellow, and the house was illuminated with light that seemed to pour straight from the heavens after the darkness of the night.

Luminous closed his eyes and relished the feeling of warm sunbeams on his cheek. So even heaven was giving him a second chance. Phantom had already given him a list of reasons why he deserved one, and now the skies were showing him the light, in all its literal sense.

But it felt good. In a strange way. It was almost a form of redemption… after having already convinced himself he was doomed, damned to hell, that he would have no purpose in the world that fought evil and sought to destroy it. It was exhilarating also to know that maybe, he could get away with having both a light and a dark side to him as well. And maybe, just maybe, he could receive the forgiveness he was so desperate to receive.

He opened his eyes to see Phantom, grimacing as he got onto his knees in front of the little grave. A strange feeling came over him and he edged closer, ready to protect the grave lest Phantom try anything unbecoming. Yet all the thief did was close his eyes, tilt his head, and keep silent… he was mourning for someone he did not even know?

Luminous almost smiled at the sincerity in his face. Who knew the master thief could be this sentimental?

'Why are you mourning for Lania?' Luminous asked, once Phantom opened his eyes.

Phantom quirked an eyebrow. 'Why not?'

'You did not even mourn for Freud.'

'Oh Luminous…' Phantom chuckled as the mage helped him to his feet. 'Just because you don't see it doesn't mean I didn't mourn. Freud was my best friend, and Aria my most tender lover. Of course I would mourn for them.'

'You do not even know how Lania looks like.' Luminous turned to regard the grave tentatively.

'Doesn't matter. Loss is loss. I mourn for your loss, your lost love, your lost one. Loss is all the same. I know how it feels.'

Luminous had no reply.

Phantom hummed. 'Aren't you going to mourn now?'

Luminous shot him a look. He did not have the time to mourn, having rushed desperately away to put as much distance between La — from the place of his sins. And in the days that followed he did not dare to come back. Not with the ghosts of his pasts and all wrongdoings he had done haunting him so.

Most of all, though, he was afraid.

'Lania… Lania probably would not even want me here.'

Phantom smiled gently. 'I arrived too late to save Aria. I could've saved her but didn't manage to. Yet I know she won't hate me for my failure… and I would love her all the same even if she did.'

'You did not kill Aria.'

'Luminous. If Lania cared for a stranger as stuffy and overbearing as you, I'm sure she didn't hate you.'

'But… but I killed her.' Luminous could feel his fists clenching, the anger threatening to overflow again. No, not now, no. He did not want to give in now, not in front of Lania's final resting place.

Phantom saw his shiftiness and grabbed his shoulder, squeezing firmly. 'Look. It wouldn't have made a difference. She knows the real you, Luminous. The side that's good.'

The world faded. A trance… his inner darkness, rising yet again? No… please not now. And as suddenly as the world faded, light was restored, and it was in the middle of the morning, and Luminous found on his knees with his throat sore, and the last of the tears on his face were drying in the heat of the sun.

He felt strangely satisfied, in a way he never knew possible. The familiar ache from loss and hurt was still there, but it was less overwhelming than before, stained now with a slight, a very slight hope.

Luminous looked up, heard the birds whistling uncaringly of the terror that had occurred the night before, the clouds framing a beautifully azure sky that bore no hint of darkness, and flinched when one fluffy cloud revealed the glowing orb of the sun and shot pure brilliance into his eyes.

His eyes stung. They watered.

And then he began to tremble.

For finally the darkness that had once eclipsed his entire being and convinced him that night was permanent for him… that was gone now, replaced with an almost glorious stream of liquid gold, of untainted sunfire. Was he one, or both, or neither?

He did not know. He did not care. All he registered was the stilling of the accusing voices in his mind, the fading of the gore and terror. He had repented, begun to pay for his sins, so he might buy the forgiveness he sought.

He felt it as much as knew it, a primal thought inside him.

The darkness inside him had mourned enough.

And now it was time for his light to take its turn.

Sobs wrecked his frame anew as he cried, curled up tighter on the ground. Pressed his head into the soil, felt the ground grow damp again with his tears even though he felt he could cry no more. He screamed his apologies to the broken girl who had loved him so, the broken girl whom he had killed slowly and in much enjoyment, and he swore upon his broken and tainted heart that he did not mean it. He cried for the hellish sins he had committed in ignorance and the heavenly acts he did not know he was capable of.

But he mourned for Lania most. The memories came back clearly now, and he was just running from them all along, deceiving himself that they did not exist. The way she sat beside him in the stormy nights when he felt he would give in to the darkness inside him, way she smoothed out his hair as he slouched against her after a night of worry, the way she was always smiling though she knew so little about him. She gave him new life, took him in when he was not sure of his fate, and taught him how to open his heart and trust again.

Most of all, he realised that she loved him back. For the darkness, and the light inside him. She loved him for both these elements, even though he did not know to control them or keep them in delicate balance.

She loved him for who he was.

How could he hate half of himself, if Lania had loved it all?

'Lania… I am so sorry. So sorry. Oh, Lania. My Lania…'

With the growing light, Luminous cried and begged for forgiveness, unknowing of the breeze and the way it whistled around the glade. It rolled around Phantom who stood with his back to Luminous as he watched the glorious hues of the morning sun. It danced around the house and the little fence that built around the yard, around the flower garden that was sown the autumn before. It ruffled the grass, blowing from the main door to the garden, almost as if it had heard the pleas of the broken man before a little grave marked with a makeshift cross, and had come to say goodbye.

– – – – : – – – –

It was late afternoon when they left. Phantom had suddenly produced a small silver cross from his cloak — 'I swear on all my thieving honor that I did not steal this!' he protested, when Luminous frowned — and handed it to Luminous to mark the grave properly. With trembling fingers he had removed the twigs, pressed the metal cross to his forehead, and whispered an old Harmony lullaby before gently fitting the cross at the head of the grave.

Phantom volunteered to take Luminous back on his flying vessel, but Luminous declined. He needed the time alone. Phantom just smiled, tipped his hat with his good hand, and was gone in a flurry of cards.

The flight back was far shorter than it seemed. His knees ached and his back was sore from being hunched over all morning. There were no thoughts in his mind, just a blissful, empty, blank where fear and desperation used to be. He was too spent to worry.

He was so tired.

But at least he had found his peace at last.

Luminous and Phantom never spoke of Lania to anyone. When asked where he had disappeared to, Luminous would stutter and look to Phantom pleadingly for help, and Phantom would say easily, 'Stuffy pants didn't believe I could see in the dark.' Or he would say 'Stuffy pants challenged me to cut down a hundred trees in a minute. I had seventeen seconds to spare.' Or he would laugh and wave them away, saying 'What dear Luminous and I do in our free time is too private to say.'

'You can't see in the dark!' Luminous would always respond, baffled. That, and 'I could tear down two hundred trees in a minute,' or 'You were definitely trying to insinuate something there. I do not swing that way and even if I did, I would not choose you, you pesky thief.'

And all Phantom would do was shrug and smile. 'Whatever you say.'

The only time they ever spoke about Lania again was the time when Luminous confronted Phantom about their scuffle in Ellinia.

'… why I had goaded you like that?' Phantom tapped his chin.

Luminous nodded. 'I was seething and ready to send you seven ways to hell.'

'Oh Sunshine, you wound me so,' chuckled Phantom, his hand clasped over his heart. 'Of course I had to. You might've thrown a hissy little fit right there in Ellinia —'

'My uncontrollable spurts of power are nothing like a hissy little fit!'

Phantom grinned but did not rise to the bait. 'Well if I'd brought you out to someplace safer, it'd make more sense, wouldn't it?'

'I did not know you had any.' Luminous growled, but was secretly relieved that Phantom had did it then.

'I have sense. And a streak of genius enough to manipulate your memories and ease out more information from you,' grinned Phantom. 'Did you piss yoursel —'

'That was cruel! Utterly cruel! And for the record I did not!'

'Well it needed to be scary… and it worked! Should I steal your underthings to check —'

'I will make good on my promise to send you to hell.'

'Stop being a stick in the mud and admit it already.'

'You know it very well might not have worked.'

'But there's no harm in an illusion, a magic trick, a trick of the light,' Phantom cooed, his singsong voice sending a shiver through Luminous. 'It's completely harmless…'

'Why you pesky little —'

So they would squabble, Luminous calling Phantom intelligent names like conniving, deceitful, scandalous… and the Master Thief blowing raspberries and calling him stuffy pants, fat face, white butt… and yet he would always stay away from insulting Luminous's red eye. As much as he hated to admit it, Luminous was eternally grateful. And after the inane war of words in the day, they would make up for it at night, on the rooftop, admiring the stars, Phantom with a glass of whatever fancy wine he had taken a liking to — or taken from Ereve's stash — and Luminous with a mug of thick, fragrant coffee.

This night they had somehow started talking about balances, for Luminous had never really found out what the old geezer meant.

'… so what exactly was wrong with Freud?'

'Nothing. He was the best guy I ever knew.'

'Nitwit. Remember when you said that everyone had pros and cons.'

'Oh. That. Freud. Well…' Phantom swirled his wine deftly, admiring the transparent liquor contemplatively. Luminous realised then that Phantom never drank red wine with him. 'It's hard to say…'

'Just tell me what comes to your mind.'

'Well if I must… Freud was a workaholic dodo who didn't care much for his health and he's grumpy when he doesn't get enough sleep and throws mini-tantrums when I try to put him in bed and he hates sweets. He launched fireballs at me so many times and destroyed at least two suits, no three suits, no four, wait let me count, one two three four five s —'

Luminous rolled his eyes and held up a hand. 'So much for that being hard to say. And what of Aria?'

'It's Empress Aria to you. She could be childlike at times… very whiny. And I hate kids. It was cute on her but she always got her way if she did that. She's so much more manipulative with me! And I can't resist cause it's not gentlemanly to,' Phantom mimicked Aria, complete with mannerisms and the slight flick of her hair and it was so innocent that Luminous laughed. 'What? I'm not kidding! She's mean!'

Luminous smiled. 'Yet you love these people all the same.'

'They're pretty cool.'

'I never thought that was possible. A balance.' He scoffed. 'Never saw the logic in it.'

'Ah, my dearest Sunshine…' Phantom took a sip of his wine and smacked his lips. 'I'm a thief calling myself a hero. I walk the good and bad all the time.'

'And I suppose you can tell me more about this balance that Grendel talk —'

Phantom was beside him, peering into his eyes and smiling. 'I didn't know you looked up to me that much. Of course I'll take you under my wing. All the tricks of the trade too —'

'Transcendents, Phantom! You make me re-evaluate my acquaintanceship with you.'

'Am I not your best friend yet?' he scowled. 'Got to change that.'

'Pesky thief. Before I set your brain right with a smack to the head, get out of my personal space.'

'Stuffy pants. I don't want to be near your horrible pants anyway.' He wrinkled his nose and returned to his perch, and they watched the stars together in silence.

'Say… Luminous?'

'What is it.'

'Am I really that pesky?'

'You have no idea.' Luminous closed his eyes.

'Everyone loves me, you know. You wound me with your harsh words…'

'Well, calling me stuffy pants does not help much with my opinion of you.'

'Your pants are stuffy.'

'They are sensible.'

'I ought to order some clothes for you… at least get rid of the weird poofiness around your thighs, it makes you look fat —'

'This is why Freud wanted to shoot fireballs at you all the time, Phantom.'

'At least his robe was regal! Yours is just a mess…'

In the midst of bickering, Luminous realised that he and Phantom both were two souls, trying to cope with loss. And he realised also that he had begun to enjoy companionship, first with Lania and now with Phantom, and perhaps Phantom might become something that meant equally as much as Lania.

He felt a cool breeze caress them both and allowed himself a smile.

And he would not ever have admitted it, but his heart was full and content again.

A/N:

Fixed some grammar errors here and there.

Anyway, I finally finally remembered to add that this was a challenge for myself — to write Luminous battling his dark/light self, without explicitly conveying it. So it was just a mad swing of angry emotions and then paranoia on the other end.

Ah well. Lania seems like a very cute girl though, wish there was more information about her~