I don't own Star Ocean: Til the End of Time. Or Nel. Or Albel. Or anything, really. Would you honestly believe me if I said I did?
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Lightning flickered on a deep red sky. The dust crumbled beneath her feet. She was in the center of the battlefield, surrounded by battle, by pain, heat, fear.
Some people thrived on it. She hated it.
The blood on the hilts of her twin shortswords made them slip out from her grasping fingers; her dark red hair was plastered to her forehead with perspiration.
On her left, one of Airyglyph's forces came hurtling from the shadows, his face contorted with fury. The woman had just enough time to throw her blade up to protect herself before he was upon her. He threw himself at her, knocking her to the ground, pinning her between the dust and his heavy gear. She struck out, her blades catching damp air. His blade knocked against her leather battle armor. She rolled in the dust, momentum flinging him beneath, and she raised her shortsword once more, plunging it into the exposed area where iron armor met the metal of his helm.
More blood now stained the blade, as the man gasped out his dying breaths.
To her right, the woman's wide eyes caught movement. They were moving in on her fast. But she wrenched her left-hand blade from the dying soldier's throat, giving herself just seconds to plunge it into his windpipe proper, hastening his death.
No one deserved to die as he would have, not even on these godforsaken plains.
The enemy shapes blurred with those of allies. She did not know one from another until they rushed her. And then the lines broke, and the cloud cover with them, beams of light falling where they did not belong.
For the first time, she knew the peculiarity of battle: she could not count the lives she'd taken. If given time to think, it might have sickened her.
For now, she felt a fleeting happiness. More enemies down, her homeland was safe for a few more seconds.
Threads of shadows pulled together at the corners of her vision: another armored killer. This one was taller than she, slender, with silver-red eyes sparkling with hatred. A smirk stained his expression, and he strode over to her, perfectly relaxed among the death that must have followed in his wake.
He drew his katana, and she did not notice 'til that moment how odd it was to be on the battlefield without a weapon. But then her eyes flickered to his left hand, a claw of steel where the appendage ought to have been. He surely required no blade beyond the steel edges that were the gauntlet's fingers.
The sky darkened once more. Never taking her eyes off the slender figure in front of her, the woman could see out of her peripheral vision as the battle raging on all sides faded to darkness. The closing storm fenced her in with the strange man, who now leveled his blade at her.
"Any last words, maggot?" he whispered, his voice raw and almost excited, like this death and destruction energized him as much as it disgusted her.
She didn't reply, merely flicked her eyes over him, analyzing him as a threat, just like a good soldier would. He was tall, much taller than her, black-and-blonde hair dangling in messy spikes. Aside from the katana and claw, he appeared unarmed, though he'd hardly need more weaponry than that. And yet, he seemed to give off waves of fear, emanating from his dark red gaze, like something from Palmira's darkest nightmares.
"Well, then…" His smirk widened, as though savoring this moment.
She didn't have time to see him start toward her. She threw up her blades just in time to hold back a devastating blow, one she didn't even see strike. Shockwaves reverberated up and down her arm, buckling beneath the weight of the blow.
She vaulted back, just in time to avoid a slash from the gauntlet. A growl heralded her opponent's frustration.
She squeezed her eyes shut. "Fire Bolt!" Three gouts of flame circled around to the edge of the clearing, and he circled to her. Without warning, he was beside her. His katana flashed to her – she couldn't raise her dagger in time – and a thin line of white-heat traced up her right arm. Blood flowed freely from the cut.
How did this man – this demon – get so strong? I can't…
She jerked a few yards back, tensed to spring. He closed in to deliver another blow, and she launched herself in the air, left blade poised to strike his heart. He might have laughed; he knocked her dagger away and raised his blade for a killing blow.
A crimson ball of fury circled around the woman's left, veering toward her attacker. The man abandoned his half-completed blow and rolled to the side, just barely evading the trio of flames from the redhead's Fire Bolt attack, cast moments ago and finally catching up.
The girl hit the ground from her failed aerial attack, landing crouched and rolling. She came to a halt, world spinning slightly, to find her assailant standing over her. How? A glittering shaft of steel was leveled at her throat.
"Well, worm," he growled, "you're not the most pathetic piece of scum on the battlefield today." He was breathing hard, and sporting a scratch along his cheekbone that she didn't remember inflicting. "That's why I'm going to spare your miserable life."
In the time it took the redhead to register the victor's words, he'd sheathed his sword and faded back into the chaos surrounding her.
A warrior at heart, the redhead's temper flared. She'd been beaten, and with seeming ease. She was on her feet, ignoring her dizziness and the dust that rained down from her Crimson Blade outfit. This man, this monster, god of the battlefield, was the enemy. Sparing 'scum' on a whim was not a luxury of war, and she would teach him that.
Training had taught her to remember: she was fighting for Aquaria. So she would fight, killing to spite the arrogant fool that spared her, and his arrogant, foolish country.
The redhead with the flashing eyes dove back onto the battlefield.
On her left, a runologist's corpse leaked blood, the iron-copper scent making her stomach turn. Slash marks across the dead man's face and chest seemed to allude to a death perhaps caused by a steel claw, rather than a normal blade.
Maybe this one was deemed 'pathetic' by his murderer. Maybe he died for one war god's judgment. The woman's eyes clouded with anger.
Another leap sent her flying futher into the battlefield, toward yet more opponents. Her blades were bloodied from those she cut through, but they were enemies – God, she hoped they were enemies – and she could not stop herself.
Before her was a tall, slender warrior again. This one wore dark platemail and wielded a halberd with fearsome accuracy. It was not the demigod of bloodlust who had 'spared' her life countless minutes ago, but it would do. She was upon him in mere seconds, before he had time to react.
She plunged her twin daggers into his body, feeling it go limp with shock. She was off him again in a trice, looking for more Glyphian bastards to slake her bloodlust. She left the man to gasp out his final agonizing moments in the dust.
Worse of all was the unbidden, bloody grin that stained her lips.
And when she woke, she didn't know if it was a mere nightmare, or a memory.
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"What's the matter, Zepher? Afraid to face me again?" the voice reached her as if from a great distance, affecting her closed eyes rather than her ears and forcing her vision back into focus from reverie.
The checkered surface of Paracelsus' Table rematerialized before her eyes, sharp squares pulling together from blotches of light and dark. Nel lifted her gaze to the figure across from her.
Albel Nox glared at her in the half-light of the back room in the Peterney Inventors' Guild. "Were you planning on fighting me or staring at me, wench?" The warrior stifled a yawn even as he spoke. It was early, too early for the Wicked one, he'd told her. But he'd consented to being dragged to the Guild, rousing Welch, and coercing her into leading them to the dark, warm storage room with the Table.
And now that she was there, Nel didn't know what she wanted to do with it. To fight Albel Nox, that was the idea of it, to face her fears. But the nightmares of past wars would continue on, no matter haw many mornings she woke Albel from his own nightmares for this bizarre daily ritual.
She didn't know how many nights she'd been woken, precisely before dawn, feeling the bloodstained smile on her face. Of course, frantic examination in the mirror on her bedside table reassured her that there was no blood, but worse was the idea that there might once have been.
Instead of fear being dulled by repetition, Nel became more and more certain that these lucid pictures of death – and her own revelry in it – were true. Somehow, in the thick of battle she was not the focused, honorable Blade that she was off it.
Somehow, she was a monster.
As always, she silently pulled the card with her picture on it from a hidden pocket. As always, Albel mirrored the gesture.
Maybe finding peace within this war meant that she was just as twisted as the man she faced. Or perhaps facing her fears made her stronger. It didn't matter, at least in the moments before their homunculi loaded. Nel met Albel's eyes once more. He looked on dispassionately, clearly not caring about her, her morality, her choices. She was just another obstacle to be destroyed. And he was the same to her, at least in these moments.
As her homunculus fizzled onto the Table surface, Nel pushed doubt from her mind, becoming one with the ruthless nightmare.
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A/N: I guess I had a hard time believing that Nel never struggled with questions like these; she's a smart girl, and a hell of a fighter. Though it's kind of dark, I wondered what she thought of her own occasional calousness. And here we are.
Okay, my first fic on this site. It's been sitting in my computer for weeks now, but I think it's as good as I can make it; time to take the plunge. So, please let me know what you think, but be at least a little gentle about it... Hope you enjoyed it.