The same visual replays within my mind like a recording that is on endless repeat. The sealing of Nyx, death itself. Through all of the ordeals I had overcome in the last year I found my own individual answer to the life that I had lived thus far. This answer was the warmth that was bestowed onto me in the shape of the bonds that I had established with the people I surrounded myself with. Knowing that they had that, no matter the cost, kept me motivated and I could only want one more thing is to be able to be with them and live through the days that we sought to protect by laying our lives on the line every full moon.
It's the same visual that plays in my mind in the endless space that I am in, where time is irrelevant and within it is nothingness except the malice and misunderstanding that mankind seems to have within themselves and constantly call out to Death, endangering those who I hold dear.
It is for those reasons as to why I am here, it is for those reasons as to why I will not allow anybody to sever these chains that I built throughout the time I spent with my friends, I declare, I will not move for anything.
"Not even for the opportunity of freedom?" Beckons a voice from the distance.
"But who will take my place?" I reply seldomly.
I heard a huff through the distance following a small chuckle, "Why does it matter who takes your place, you know yourself that a sacrifice must be made in order to achieve a goal. That is something that you found along with your own answer."
It truly would be a dream to be able to see everybody once again, and one person in particular. One that I missed more so than normally. She was special, somebody who showed me a side of herself that only is visible to me in particular.
Shaking my head I retort, "Impossible. My place is here. Protecting everybody is my duty. I made my decision, this is just how things have to be. It can't be helped."
Upon finishing my finishing my sentence I felt a now unfamiliar sensation: A heartbeat. Opening my eyes, my vision was resting on a beautiful woman who was dressed in all blue, who usually has her inhumanly massive book, but now nowhere to be found.
"My~ " Elizabeth began, "It would seem not even death would alter the shape of you. One would say, God took his time with you?" Elizabeth began to lose herself in her laughter as she began to ramble on the reasoning as to why there is no God and how foolishly cute human beings are for finding hope in imaginary characters.
Following her misplaced sentence was another unplaced laugh as I observed my surroundings and proceeded to rack my brain for any kind of answers as to why I continued to hear this deafening beat howling in my ears.
Am I alive?
Something is different. I feel...
"Warm." I whispered.
Elizabeth looked at me once more and then spurt back into her incoherent fit of laughter. She began to calm down after some minutes then jumped up taking a large inhale of air.
"Makoto-san,may I ask you a question?" Elizabeth asks me staring intently in my eyes as we stood in the void of nothingness, "If it is the job as an attendant of the Velvet Room to serve you to your best potential, why is it that your reward be imprisonment?"
It couldn't be helped, you can't kill malice. That's not how this works.
As I begin to retort this verbally her soft palm envelops my face to silence me, smiling ever so sadly.
"It's horrible. Much too horrible. I won't accept this outcome, and your insolence for making such a rash decision insults me. In all my years of life, not even the sharp retorts from my master has even been as insulting as this."
The silence we shared for that moment was interrupted by a rumbling in the void space we were in, and chains snatching the wrist of the gentle attendant.
I instinctively rushed and attempted to yank with all my might, knowing how crushing it is to be here in this eternal darkness alone.
I can't accept this! I won't accept this!
I was scared. I began to once again feel fear, and this intense feeling couldn't help but compel the actions I was taking no matter how futile they may be. I'm no fool, I know this may be for naught.
Not like this, please.
I was suddenly stopped by the snicker of the now imprisoned attendant, freezing as our eyes met, I realized that my actions were not welcome. The decision has been made, and my feelings on the matter were not considered.
"Yuuki."
Stretching to meet my face, our lips met for a moment with her own type of sincerity.
Flesh, it's… Cold. Sad.
"Humans perform the act of kissing with somebody they are infatuated with do they not?"
Elizabeth took a deep breath and began to explain herself to me. "The time it took for me to find the resources that were necessary to go about these actions I am doing at this moment took me a millennia in separate realities. Although you might be satisfied with your own departure, I and the individuals you surrounded yourself with can't help but differ. Please do not fret and do not step on my actions, they are my own."
I took notice of her body being dragged into the darkness of the void closer to gates that locked Nyx and with everything that was happening, I could only squeak out a mere sentence.
"Why?"
Just as she was a mere head disappearing in the air she gave me an answer that would be engraved into my being forever.
I awoke once more, with a jolt. "Elizabeth!"
The scent of dirt filled my nostrils, and my brain began to process all the information of what was going on and I couldn't help but feel an unbearable sadness. So there I laid, in the grave that belonged to me, where I was supposed to be resting. Yet I was alive, feeling the tears flowing down my cheek with the heaviness that is loss.
The final words of Elizabeth will forever be engraved into my soul forever.
"Because no matter how long I've lived, it was through you that I found what it meant to be alive."