Chapter 24:

"Ah, War… You always were the worst of us…" Death chuckled as he held War raised above his head, fingers piercing the sky as the pack of Beowolves fell victim to the stinging liquid-red tendrils of War, catapulting themselves like javelins into the non-existent hearts of the Grimm creatures. The liquidised letters slowly slithered back to their rooted position as the final Beowolf fell lifeless.

It had been centuries since he had felt such power in his hands.

Death began harvesting the creatures' incomplete souls.

Unfortunately, the Reaper's excessive use of War to remove the Grimm had resulted in him draining more of his strength than he was able to gain from the Grimm souls, but this downside posed little annoyance to Death; he was simply relieved to be reunited with an old friend, even if it was only a husk – a withered shell of the real thing.

Much like Famine and Conquest, War was a simple manifestation one of the four horsemen's beings. Death was the only horseman still riding a horse.

The destruction of his companions came across as most unsatisfactory for the fourth horseman.

And at the roots of their extinction – none other than the damnable Strange Folk.

The Reaper had tried to honour his companions, his friends, by infusing their souls into ethereal blades. A mere decade they had lasted in the hands of the fourth horseman, slaughtering all foes and taking revenge upon those that had done wrong by them. But there would always be a twist.

Too quickly, the blades were destroyed, and Death banished back to the ethereal realms. It was no way to honour your fallen brethren.

Famine was closed to restored, yet still far from true form. Famine's soul had allowed his soul-infused blade to starve the land of plant life.

Conquest's blade once allowed the bringing of plague.

War's blade had allowed the massacre of everything in sight.

Though it all came at the price of power. Specifically, the wielders own power – the wielder's force of existence – their life-force.

The Reaper grumbled. Upgrading his weapons would mean a larger consumption of his power, meaning a great deal less stamina. Less spiritual power meant less physical strength, meaning a certain return to the ethereal realms.

Of course, starting a full-blown genocide to enhance his strength wasn't completely out of the question, but God would certainly disagree – If he could've done that he wouldn't even need to be among the mortals.

Influencing genocide, however; that was something possible.

The sheer thought of a genocide was disgusting; humans systematically eliminating a certain racial or ethical group, mostly out of the stupidest and most idiotic reasons. But it was all just fuel to the fire – the Grim Reaper's fire – and it wasn't his place to care about anything else.

War was the worst horseman behind the Reaper himself.

He was overwhelmed by greed and violence – his eyes a black void, no remnant of anything showing through his sight.

Despised by the other horsemen for his ridiculously idealistic views; his beliefs of becoming perfect and breaking from God's cycle. Immortality was the goal – the ideal – he had strived for oh-so valiantly.

Perhaps foolish at times, War was reckless in his path to immortality. Earth's apocalypse was his playground, his fields of green for him to frolic in like a playful child – a child with a knife. The only time his soul was detached from God, he saw his chance to break free from his ethereal chains and find his idealistic destiny.

He was a fool for seeking the assistance he did. A horseman does not sell his soul to an underground cult – no – that was the epitome of foolishness.

Maybe his mind had been corrupted? Perhaps he had been driven insane by… something. There was no telling what drove him to take such risks.

All there was to know was that he had made a foolish move, and now…

Finally, War's soul had been played straight into the hands of Death. Incomplete, yes, but it was still a fragment of the horseman's soul, weak or not. That was power.


Ruby Rose was gone. No surprise.

Ruby Rose was of no current concern to the reaper, though. There were more important things on mind.


"Paladin Harland, I trust you have some enlightening news for me." Silas hummed, his face and feelings dull behind his armoured chassis. Bastian Harland bowed.

"Brother Silas," he began, his voice soft and irritated, "The allies I was able to formulate in Vale have defected against me." He touched his hand to his helmet, wiping the blood from his armour.

"I was forced to vacate. I have failed us."

Silas sighed, "Not at all, my Brother." He placed a hand to his comrade's head. "Are they a threat to us?"

Bastian raised his head, staring Silas deep into his artificial eyes, "Undoubtedly."

"Then we shall send Praetor Acacius to tie up loose ends. It seems our time of hiding is over."

Bastian turned to leave.

"Oh," Silas continued, "Please unbind the prisoner and bring her to me."

Bastian nodded.

Silas sat idle in his stone throne, dust settling on his armour, such a deadly stillness overtaking his body. His boot tapped against the floor rhythmically on occasion, sending a resonating echo through the bowels of the temple's sub-levels.

Minutes passed by and Silas still remained in a statue-like state of immobility, completely still as he stared further ahead into the chamber, illuminated by flickering flames.

The aging stone wall at the end of the chamber slid into the floor, revealing Bastian with the restrained prisoner at his feet, on her knees.

"Move." Silas heard the echo faintly as Bastian shoved her forward rather violently with the underside of his boot. The girl rolled along the floor a few feet, struggling to stand to her feet before Bastian hoisted her up by the waist and carried her forward. Silas watched as Bastian marched toward him. The stone wall slid closed.

Bastian dropped the girl at his feet as Silas shifted to stand, towering over the girl. Bastian slipped off to the side as Silas stared at the girl.

Her hands were bound by handcuffs and she was beaten and bloody; thinned breaths escaping through swollen lips, amber eyes shaking unnaturally. Slumped over on the floor, she looked dead already.

"Blake Belladonna." Silas stated, his voice echoing strongly through the room

"I'm sure this situation is similar to you… I recall that you have been under the influence of our Nightmare Essence before, if you remember the docks, but never indirectly like you are now." he paced around her, glaring at her crumpled body.

"I'm surprised you haven't tried to escape from those conventional handcuffs…" his voice remained monotone, "You haven't even seen half the temple yet… I'm sure you thought you could escape, no?"

Blake remained silent, barely quivering through pain.

"It's a shame your aura doesn't work in these sub-levels, those wounds would hurt a lot less if it did." Silas sat cross legged in front of her

"To rub it in, I even decided to commandeer those handcuffs specially." He poked at her cuffed hands, "You know who was in those cuffs before you?" he tilted his head

Blake's shaking eyes grew wide, considering the unlikely possibilities.

"Correct. Poor old Adam… he was resilient, like you." Silas stood, "You see, he began to catch onto us… so we did what we have always done." He smirked behind his helmet, straightening his posture.

"It's a shame I can't kill you though…" he continued, "Acacius would grow angry for destroying a future asset." Silas seated himself in his stone chair once more

"Since I can't kill you, that would mean more fun for me, so know that I bestow upon you the following information for my own amusement. I will tell you my semblance." A small hole appeared in his helmet, revealing Silas' right eye, a riddle of bloodied veins and an odd symbol in place of his pupil, "My semblance is called the Eye of Posterus. My eye sees the future, Blake. I hope you'll humour me in our future bouts with this information. Take her, Bastian." He gestured to Bastian and the man lifted Blake by her waist once more, carrying her out of the room.

Silas smiled. He still longed for a challenger in battle. Maybe he would get one soon.


"Wake up." Hollow slapped the unconscious girl and she began to stir. Her eyes eventually fluttered open and Blake recoiled slightly, only to discover the intense pain coursing through her body was halting her from making any sudden movements. Hollow gave her a moment to regain her senses, looking around at the moonlit treeline.

"…W-what happened?" she managed to mumble out.

"What did they take?" Hollow immediately replied, "Was it a kidney? Or did they replace your heart?"

Blake tried to sit up but found her body unwilling. She could barely even move her arms.

"Who are you?" she wheezed

"Unimportant." Hollow replied, 'Looks like they took nothing from her.'

"You've been exposed…" Hollow realised, seeing faint blue glows emanating from her veins, "It will be a painful journey back." He quickly replaced his mask's filter and pulled her into a cradle lift.

"Keep quiet," He said, "There are Grimm near."

Hollow stayed low, sticking to the shadows. Despite being immortal and older than almost anything else on remnant, Hollow still possessed emotions, be they subtle. Emotions meant Grimm. Blake was probably radiating a lot of negative emotions right now. That meant a lot more Grimm.

"You're heavy." He deadpanned. She groaned. Unfortunately for Blake, the Nightmare Essence she had been exposed to made it so that unconsciousness wouldn't be arriving any time soon. Nerve endings all over her body were firing off all over her body, a most unpleasant feeling to have, like being burned alive yet unable to scream your pains. Intense painkillers would only serve to numb the pain slightly, but it was the best Blake was going to get right now.

Hollow slid to a halt, dirt gathering beneath his boots as he began to lower Blake to the ground. He produced a small syringe and jabbed it into her arm, releasing the fluid into her bloodstream.

"It's a general anaesthetic. It will null the pain for the next thirty minutes so you won't feel like you're on fire." He said, "I can't render you unconscious though, that's impossible for now." She probably couldn't register anything he was saying.

His head shifted from left to right, his eyes staring through the darkness of the forest as he searched for potential threats. Satisfied with his negative results, Hollow lifted the girl into a cradle once more and they were off through the undergrowth.


After nearly fifteen minutes of undisturbed movement, Blake began to gradually regain her sense of mind, her blurry vision slowly clearing and her mind fully registering her surroundings. The pain was subtle, but still existent as she gazed around for a moment, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.

She was moving. Fast. She could hardly feel her legs, numbed to all hell. She was being carried.

A grunt resonated from somewhere near her and she felt herself falling, eventually colliding with a muddy patch of dirt and tumbling further through the mess. Her body flipped a couple times, yet no feeling came to her, the only sensation in her body being the subtle pain in the background of her mind and the numb unresponsiveness of her limbs.

She heard something else squelch in the muddy ground and a figure fell into her eyesight, large and well-built drenched in a long black coat with a head of messed silver hair. The male figure turned its head to face her, revealing not a face but a broken and tattered mask of sorts with an open hole where an eyepiece would presumably fit; though the other side completely contrasted this, looking nearly brand new. Blake's cat-like eyes caught a small detail clinging to the side of his face, a melted contortion of rubber and skin faded together beneath his strings of silver hair.

He turned his head away again, simultaneously producing a small cylindrical object from the long of his coat as he quickly scrambled to his feet in the thick muddy environment. He rolled left, out of Blake's eyesight, the girl finding herself unable to shift her eyes to follow the man as her vision began to slowly fade to Black. With no recollection of earlier events, her vision faded to nothing, though her ears remained active and that background pain remained ever-present through her body, accompanying the numbness in her limbs.

She heard the clash of metal and the man's disgruntled groans and all she could do was listen.