Truth be told, Princess Alisya doesn't know how long has it been since the war started.
Has it only been a few months? A year, perhaps? Maybe even more than a decade?
In the end, it was of no matter to her, she was born... no, created for the sole purpose to obey the Emperor's orders without question nor hesitation, to be a simple tool for the military, and to be a soulless weapon that would only know how to save whatever dignity and pride her Kingdom has - or had, left. And this was true for quite some time. But now, only after the Crown City falls, only after the deaths of countless human lives, and only after the news of the last of the royal family members, her father, her siblings - escaping into another dimension; leaving many others at the mercy of the terrible forces of the Gods, was Alisya woke up from her endless bloodbath.
"Sister..."
Was the words that the girl heard when her consciousness returned, the same one that she echoed through her lips immediately after, and somehow, also the same word that continously renews her conviction and determination to search for her. Her sister. Her savior. One that she'd forgotten everything about, one that broke her father's curse on her and gave her life back into her, one that made her able to finally... feel. And so, with grim vigor, Alisya took up her scythe and began her endless trek across the desolate continent in search of this sibling. A search for her most important person, a search for her reason to keep on living.
But that was times ago, and the sense of time was already lost on her. For what feels like ages, without pause, she has been marching across the disfigured plains and desecrated battlegrounds. The princess's heart aches for what has happened to her Kingdom. Bariura was once feared and revered to as one of, if not - the mightiest Kingdoms in Grand Gaia, so much so, that the her citizens would proudly boast and pump their chest when faced even against the greatest adversaries, for they are the true protectors of the grand Mount Bari. The Fatherland prided itself on their warriors, providing the leading edge in technology, magic, and fighters that would put other Kingdoms' to shame.
And all of those achievements, gone.
All that's left now were piles of craters dotting the landscape, rusting machines, crumbling magical tomes, and decaying bodies. No matter where she looks, Alisya will now only find abandoned fortresses, once-fortified positions and landfills filled with mountains of corpses - of soldiers and citizens alike, mangled together and left in the open while maggots and vultures alike feasted upon the rotten pile of meat and bones. They were probably intended to be burried in mass graves, but clearly that wasn't the case anymore. To think that even the colossal Red Army would fall under the heels of the Gods, and at such pace too, she shudders to think on what happened to the rest of the continent.
Angry, frustrated, sad. She feels all those things, and more. To think that being broken free of her curse would make her happy for once. Instead, Alisya has to immediately face reality. A reality in which she knows too well, she's helped in creating. The princess has blood on her hands, the blood of her enemies, and the blood of her own countrymen. Her scythe has claimed countless lives of the invading Gods and Demons, but also Bariura's own warriors, the Fatherland's innocent fathers, mothers, children, all just to fuel her insanity and her mad conquest to kill and purge everything in her sight, whilst reaping their souls in the process, imbuing the scythe with even more strength and dark energy. She hates her scythe, hates herself for being too weak to resist the maddening powers of her weapon, and as a result, her own loyal subjects paid the price.
She's been wanting to discard her weapon for such a long time, for the scythe brings back nothing but bad memories of her past, of her father's experiments on her, of her own weakness. But in some twisted irony, she just can't do that, for the soul-absorbing blade has bonded completely with her life energy, as part of the experiments done to her. It is quite literally her source of life. Alisya wouldn't need to feed or drink every few hours, to slowly mend her wounds after every battle, for her scythe would just use its stored souls to heal its master, keep her nourished, and keep her fighting under its influence. It's only due to her sister's interference, that Alisya's own consicousness returned after being eaten by her blade.
The only thing Princess Alisya can do, is to take her mind away and refrain from using her own weapon ever again. She must not waste the chance her sister has given to her, she will have to live for herself.
And so, Alisya Mikhailovna Bariura, the Eighth Princess of the Royal Bariura Family walks.
It is going to rain again.
Dark clouds have gathered on the horizon, blocking the night sky and plunging the empty lands below into complete darkness, the winds have picked up in its speed and intensity, rustling even the most rooted blades of grass. Alisya can feel the air current grinding uncomfortably against her pale face, her cloak flowing with the stream along with its direction, though it didn't really mind her that much. She welcomes cold breeze for once, they are soothing when compared to the usually damp and dry air of the poluted land, it helps to bring her peace after seeing so much unending death and destruction the Gods had brought upon them.
Still, Alisya needs to find a shelter, as much as she appreciates the feel of rain every once in a while, getting bombarded by sharp needles of water still isn't exactly pleasant to her skin. Her purple eyes dart left and right in search for any structure of tree for her to take refuge in, of course, being in an open ground in the middle of a battlefield isn't doing much to help her case. She can spot a few entrenched positions where part of the Red Army would take their - usually - final stand against the incoming Gods's forces, along with abandoned machinery, tank traps, barbed wires, gun emplacements all lay, wasting away without their human masters.
She approaches the network of hastily dug trenches, once filled with lively soldiers and their commisars barking orders at them, now silent and eerie, with mixtures of dried blood and bones splattered the dirt around them. Some of the soldiers' remains were still seen clutching to their weapons, another one's head bent down to embrace a small child, if she were to guess - no more than a year old, while some other corpses don't even seem to be in uniforms, rather - just clothed in simple rags and torn clothes, in their hands are a mixture of primitive blunt or bladed weapons, blacksmith's hammers, ffarmer's sickles and the such, improvised to deal any kind of damage to the invading enemy.
Some of them are not even soldiers, yet these Bariurans fought to their literal last breath all in service for the Fatherland. The battle also looks recent, their defeat couldn't be more than a few days ago.
The scene was moving, but no less disturbing for the Princess, for as much as she hates almost everything about her warmongering Kingdom, she is still their Princess. She curses herself, damning for not being fast enough in her mindless ventures, she wonders at the possibility of these people surviving had she came a little earlier. Her scythe doesn't seem to react to any of the corpses, meaning that their souls seem to have passed on peacefully - much to Alisya's relief. She utters a silent prayer to any kind of higher being, still considerate or benelovent enough to hear her, mostly directed at the lost lives and proceeds to move on. It is best to keep the dead undisturbed, after all. Walking another short distance from the trenches, Alisya finds herself looking at one of the many crudely built machine gun nest, with its entrance connected to the rest of the main tunnels. The nest looks to be abandoned of any equipment, most likely brought back to the large trench to be used in the defense.
With its dirt roof and floorings, it is no Royal Palace, but it is a shelter nonetheless. Alisya thinks for a few seconds on whether it is wise for her to stay in a place, so near to the trenches where all the soldiers fought at, where so much death happened, but multiple cracks of thunder in the distance is enough to give the final push the Princess needs to do her somewhat selfish actions. She climbs down to the trench and simply walks into the open door of the man-made dirt bunker, again still noting the absence of weapons or ammunition within it... with the exception of a single soldier's body, just laying unceremoniously, face first on the ground. Maybe a scout of sorts, proven from the lack of heavy duty gear the he is carrying, just a simple firearm for long-range combat.
A pretty peculiar place to die, but seeing how her chosen shelther is occupied by someone, Alisya thinks if she should move the body and give him a proper burial outside, or maybe that she is the one who should move away instead and let him rest in-
Alisya's grip on her scythe suddenly tightens when she sees the slumped figure twitch, not once, not twice, but a few times, and in rapid succession. Speaking of the blade, the cursed weapon of the Princess seems to slightly glow in an ominous violet, indicating that it was drawn to the soul of the fallen man.
He is alive. Maybe just barely, but still alive.
The scythe-wielding woman immediately approaches the man in haste, turning his body around face up to check on his condition. The soldier's face is ghastly pale and his body looks extremely malnourished, on closer inspection, she can see just how skeletal the man looks, the structure of his face is bony and reduced to just the shape of his skull, similar as to his fingers. His torso seems to have shrunk in size to the point that his uniform looks a few sizes too big on him. Sure enough, he is breathing. The air he takes are shallow and labored, and are not enough to keep him conscious, as he seems to be slipping in and out from the land of the living.
He also looks to be heavily injured, with the heavy and swelling bruises near his eyes, nose, and jaw. Most of his torso is also covered with deep cuts and more of those equally severe bruises, she even notes some more drips of fresh blood escaping from the open wounds and seeping into his woodland-camouflaged uniform, while his left leg, starting from his knee is completely bent to the side and it feels horrifyingly soft to touch, a prove enough that it's completely broken to the bone. The soldier starts to wheeze, whether from the pain or the struggle to catch more breath, Alisya doesn't know, but if there's anything else, she feels disgusted. Not at the man, but at the Gods for reducing someone to such a pathetic and pitiful state. Maybe they even left him alive as a sole survivor to humiliate him further.
Alisya notices that scythe starts to glow brighter at the sight of the soldier barely clinging to life. The blade ever hungers for more soul, and it makes its intentions clear enough by pulsing its violet light at the direction of the downed man.
Conflict starts to build up within the young Princess's heart. She could give him the quick and sweet release of death, maybe that's the least she could do to ease her loyal subject's pain, and after all, that's what her weapon also desires to keep it - and in an extend, Alisya herself alive and well. But this will be the first time that she will have to take another's life while she still has her conscience in a long-long time. Alisya stands back up and reaffirms the grip on her scythe, its blade raised high and ready to strike down on the soldier's neck, a swift end to his suffering. She takes several deep breaths, and once again, prays for anyone that could listen to her wishes for this man to be granted nothing but happiness in the next life.
...
A few more seconds pass, but the blade still hangs high. She can't do it.
Alisya can not take another life. She has seen enough death for one life, and killing another is too much for the Princess. Her grip falters, and she sets her scythe down. Instead, she bargains with her weapon to release enough of its own energy to keep the man alive. The cursed weapon obviously wouldn't agree to the demand, going as far as to autonomously jerk itself in the Princess's hand, urging her to make the kill. Alisya scowls at her scythe's persistence, but she resisted to follow its orders, even after receiving a light pulse of pain at the back of her head, a little show of force from the scythe's dark curse on its wielder.
The silent argument continues for more minutes, until Alisya decides on one thing - she infuses her own life energy upon the scythe before releasing its warm and radiating energy around the room, or as some of the Bariuran scientist and the military would call it a "Brave Burst", a show of one's incredible will to release and perform miracles or other potentially destructive or maybe even restorative powers, something that was first only exclusive to the Gods, hence the name. After injecting her will and desire to heal the soldier, the scythe follows her direction and focuses its violet light on the man. But instead of causing anymore damage, Alisya could see that the soldier's open wounds, slowly regenerating and starting to close up, his bruises somewhat deflating and the color on his body returning.
After a few more seconds of releasing her energy, Alisya collapses onto her knees, a price to pay for risking her own life to do such a show of force.
She shifts her tired purple eyes from the ground and onto the man's face, capturing the image of his consciousness slowly gathering back. The soldier's eyes twitches and with great effort, starts to crack open, revealing an innocent-looking pair of warm ember eyes. Their glances met, and the warmth that she could feel from his eyes then all but disappeared as they went wide as saucers, before narrowing into a dangerous and cold glare. Anxiety starts to kick in on the Princess, did something went wrong in the healing process? Did her scythe tampered with her Brave Burst, and instead only served to endager the man's life even further?
"...Princess... Alisya..." He croaks miserably, his voice still sounding shattered and broken, although his mind seems to be sound enough for her to recognize her identity. "...Please stay away... from me... you... you monster."
...What?
