Chapter 43 – Interlude: The Bare Blade.

"A weapon can't just be hard, you know." Shigure grinned.

"You get along so well." Tabatha commented lightly. "Is he your brother?"

"I wonder… Hmm…" Magilou dangled her legs from the rooftop.

"No, he wouldn't be, would he." The old woman observed.

The legate grinned, hefting the sheathed sword resting on his shoulder. "It's got to be flexible, too…"

"Just how deeply will the fangs of our would-be tragic heroine scar this broken world of ours?" The witch pondered into the night.

"After all… Your brother was murdered before your very eyes." Tabatha's words were cold.

Magilou sighed. "In the face of doom, still the crow caws defiantly…"

Velvet narrowed her eyes. "I ditched my scabbard long ago." She intoned quietly.

Tabatha nodded slowly in recognition. "So… you are the embodiment of a bare blade."

Magilou huffed softly. "You really know how to vex me."

Shigure's eyes narrowed. "…Or it'll snap."


SHINK!

With a roar, Velvet Crowe jerked her sword into a snake daemon's scales, eliciting a pained screech of agony. Blood squirted everywhere as the weapon was tugged out before a massive claw promptly engulfed the daemon with a disgusting squelch.

CRUNCH!

With an audible snap, the daemon fell limp, dangling from the outstretched claw that began to pulsate, sucking the life out of the corpse. The claw clenched into a fist, dripping with residual blood as the daemon disappeared from existence.

Just another living thing that had been devoured by the Lord of Calamity.

Eleanor and Laphicet exchanged looks of horror at the therion's sheer brutality. They watched together as Velvet slowly stood, her hair lifting from her back and her claw dissipating once more behind bandages.

"V-Velvet…" Laphicet whispered quietly.

Eleanor shook her head and put a soft hand on the malak's shoulder, wordless.

"Kill… Always… All… Devour…"

Together, they watched as the unstable woman walked on, ignoring the blood dripping from her face and mumbling incessantly.

Ceaselessly into the void.

And as she walked, the memories flooded in, unbidden.


"I know you've painted yourself in your mind as someone horrible, Velvet." He intoned softly, holding the woman's gaze. "And I won't lie and say that what you've done isn't utterly horrific."

He shook his head. "But at the same time, I know where you're coming from. Nobody else here does." He patted his chest meaningfully. "But I do. And take this from a person who knew you before you a daemon, okay?"

He gave a firm squeeze on her shoulder. "There is at least one person around you whom you've failed to convince that you deserve the label of monster, at least fully." He intoned. "I know that inside all this violence and anger, you're still you. That's why I'm still here."

He gave a pat on his friend's shoulder and let go, stepping backwards and giving her some space. His boots squelched noisily in the rain-filled silence.

He went on wryly, "I don't mind giving you a little wake-up bullet whenever you let yourself go a bit too far into the deep end, Velvet. Whenever you let yourself get too carried away in your role as evil monster, I'll be here to let you know. I'll be there to make sure you stay in in the light." He promised sincerely.

He gave an honest, wry smile. "That's what friends do, after all." He waved an uncaring hand in the air. "If you're going to hate me for it, go ahead."


"No…" Velvet muttered, shaking her head violently. "He's wrong… wrong…!"

Her steps moved mechanically, one at a time, towards oblivion.

"…Monster… I kill… I devour…" She whispered.


"I need you to quit brooding by yourself, Velvet. Or else."

"Or else what?" Velvet challenged, raising an eyebrow.

He smiled disarmingly. "Or I'll shoot you again."

"…You have a strange idea of friendship." Velvet muttered.

"Well, in my defense, you're always threating to eat me so…"

"…I guess you have a point." She shrugged. "Anyways, what I do is up to me, and no one else. Your concern is wasted on me." She reaffirmed once more, unyielding in her determination.

The two fell back into silence, watching as stars appeared in the sky, reflecting off the endless void of the ocean around them. The creaking of the ship, the muted whispers on the deck. All of it surrounded them and engulfed them in a different world.

"Nevertheless…" Velvet whispered. "…Thank you."

He smiled. "Anytime."


"NO!"

Velvet abruptly roared, startling the two people trailing behind her. "YOU'RE WRONG!"

With a ragged breath, she threw her right fist at the closest rock at full force.

CRACK!

"Agh!" She groaned, relishing the pain that followed from the broken fingers she had inflicted upon herself.

"VELVET!" Laphicet's cry was loud and irrelevant. As the healing mana of the malak's frantic artes began to sink in, Velvet shook her head angrily.

"Stop… stop it…" She muttered, clutching her head.

Somehow, Laphicet knew she wasn't referring to his healing.

Her mind whirled.

He was a traveler… from a different world…

Who trusted her.

Who believed in her.

Who had stayed for her!

…No.

He didn't matter.

All that mattered was-!


"I'm not apologizing, you know. For not telling you about the dream arte." He sighed, closing his eyes and savoring the ocean breeze.

"These people… these memories… the person you used to be…" He shook his head. "They're part of you, you know."

"The past can't be forgotten. Shouldn't be forgotten." He sighed, a distant look in his eyes. "I had fun, Velvet. While it lasted." He admitted quietly.

"Remembering who you were… it's a good thing. That's how I look at it."

He fiddled with his jacket absently. "I've made a lot of mistakes." He admitted. "Tons, actually. Sometimes I just feel like pointing my gun at my own head and pulling the trigger because of how much I hate what I've done."

He shrugged. "But when I do have thoughts like that… all I have to do is think back." His eyes were soft. "Think back to the good times. And remember that they aren't necessarily constrained to my past."

"Looking back is just a part of being alive." Leo stated firmly as he turned around to face the sea, his coat blowing in the wind.

"…Don't you go forgetting it, Velvet."


"SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!"

Her mad howls rent the air, resounding off the very stones.

"You're wrong!"

In a mad rage, she conjured her daemon arm and clawed every inch of rock in front of her, sending sharp rocks flying everywhere.

"YOU'RE WRONG!"

Her face and her arms bled with each maddened impact, marred by razor-sharp shards of rocky debris.

"YOU'RE WRONG!" She screamed, slamming her entire claw onto the floor. The ground trembled under the sheer ferocity of the impact.

Huffing and panting, the woman once again welcomed the pain that flooded in as the adrenaline faded, her entire being on fire with agony.

"…elvet you've gotta stop!"

She abruptly registered Laphicet's frantic attempts at healing the worst of the bruises and gashes on her body caused by her rampage.

"Velvet, please!" Laphicet pleaded, his eyes wide and terrified.

Eleanor stepped forward and gripped her shoulders urgently. "You must calm down!" The exorcist beseeched desperately, shaking the therion in an attempt to snap her out of her dementia.

Calm.

Calm down?

How could she…

HOW COULD SHE?!

Eleanor let out a scream of terror as she was enveloped in an instant by Velvet's horrifying daemon arm, her boots leaving the floor.

"VELVET?!" Eleanor screamed.

"NO!" Laphicet cried in horror.

With bulging, demented eyes, Velvet stared intensely at the woman wriggling in her grasp.


He choked out a weak laugh. "I always said so, didn't I?" He met Velvet's crazed, irrational, familiar eyes with a warm smile.

"You always were a real daemon when it came to your brother."

And just like that, all the rage fled in an instant.

No matter how hard she grasped, her insatiable rage, her old companion, her only constant in the last three years; all of a sudden was nowhere to be found. Here was a real fragment of the past, a person she had called a friend. A person whom had trusted her with his life and had almost become part of her family. A family she thought she'd lost forever.

That idiot was here. And he still trusted her. He knew her. Who she… was? Who she… is?

In that moment of immobilizing, terrifying uncertainty, she didn't know what to think.


Eleanor yelped as she was abruptly dropped to the floor, utterly forgotten. Her eyes shook with fear as she gazed up at the monster that had assaulted her.

Yet, as if nothing had happened at all, Velvet simply turned around and kept on walking.

This time, however, she was simply silent. All emotion had been sucked out of her.

She was a quiet, vengeful wraith in the darkness.

"Eleanor!" Laphicet hurried up forward urgently and grasped Eleanor's shoulders in worry. "Are you alright?!" He asked, helping her up.

Eleanor shuddered as she managed to stumble to her feet. "I... I-I'm fine, Laphicet." She gasped, staring at the receding therion fearfully. "J-Just a little… s-shaken. That's all…" She mumbled.

Laphicet just shook his head helplessly.

"…Come on." He urged softly.

Steeling herself, Eleanor nodded.

Together, the two continued to follow the woman.

A flash of white engulfed them, stopping them in their tracks.


"…Laphi! Time to wake up!"