"You can't take much more, can you?"

This was a voice that he recognized. He'd been adventuring with this figure, the scarred hunter, for some time now. His exhausted legs staggered towards the Skull King, who was close to turning to ash. The relics buried in his flesh would soon suck in the pieces, revving the Skull King and forcing them to fight this battle yet again.

They'd all died so many times during it… it felt like a nightmare. They were all so close, yet so far from the end.

"Woah, what are you…" Another hunter began asking, his concerned voice echoing in the Revenant's ears.

However, he had a goal he had to accomplish.

His gloved hand thrust itself into the flesh of the beast ahead, digging down to its very cells and grabbing hold of the relic. The large spiked stone came out with a sickening tear, held in hand by the Revenant.

Likewise, three more floated around him, as if patiently waiting their turns to be accepted.

The one in his hand sparked with a blue energy, bonding with his flesh and bone to be taken into himself. The brain… that's right. That's what this one was. This was the relic known as the brain.

"Stop! You can't!" Another voice that barely reached his ears. His focus was dead set. This… it was something that only he could do… wasn't it?

The relic in his hand sucked itself into him. At the same time, the hovering relics honed in on him like missiles, stabbing him through the back and causing him to cry out. Blue veins raced up and down the left side of his body. His mind was on the verge of frenzy, but his body was trying to accept the relics. It was an internal war of sorts, with each side trying to figure out what to do first.

In a fit of both frenzy-induced rage and pain, all of his muscles contracted at once, causing a violent roar to come from his throat. This was more pain than he'd ever felt in his life.

This was torturous.

Miasma was pouring out from his body all at once… but then stopped. It seemed like everything was fine.

"Amazing…." This was the voice of a girl. She'd been with them for a while now. She'd seen a lot of what they'd seen, helped with their mission to find the source. And after that, helped them to save the successors. He could hear footsteps slowly echoing across the stones, prompting him to hold out his arm to the people approaching him from behind.

He clenched his fists.

Miasma slowly began leaking from all of his cells, filling the area around him with a deep blue haze.

"Ngh… this miasma is…!" That was the scarred hunter from before. He could sense something very, VERY wrong with the situation. The Revenant staggered in place, trying to keep his balance in the face of his own body weight. Even that was a task hard to handle. His heart was hammering, strong enough to nearly knock him off his feet.

The initial pain of the relics might as well have been a papercut compared to this. It felt like he was being torn apart at the seams a thousand times each second. He clutched his chest, groaning loudly and holding back the urge to scream.

"No…. this is the Queen's miasma!" A voice spoke. The kind voice that helped him through the process of becoming a revenant. Back in Project QUEEN. All those years ago.

"No, it can't be…!" That one… that one he didn't recognize. "Not the Queen!"

He could feel his power slowly returning. It was hard to contain it all, flowing from his body in a deep blue whirl that seemed to affect the area around him. This… it felt right. Better than anything in a long, long time.

"Why… Why are they...?" That was a girl's voice. He didn't recognize it. He slowly turned to face the ones behind him, raising his head to meet their gaze as he did so. In his field of view, he saw four people. A grey haired person with a scar over his eye. A red haired person wearing something that looked like it was military grade. A girl with long blonde hair, a furry cap, and a long coat. And… Louis. That one, he recognized.

That fluffy black hair was something he recognized all too well. It always came to visit him after he had volunteered. Always helped him through the process. Until the end… when he'd called out for him and never saw him again. Before everything turned sour.

"Don't worry… I won't let you suffer in vain!" The grey haired one said, taking a battle stance. Now that he thought about it…. That one was one of the ones who had killed him before. That, and a green haired one that dealt the final blow. He could still remember the last words he spoke to that revenant, just before his body turned to ash.

"Please…. Save everyone."

Louis seemed to stop the man before he could strike the Queen. In response, he only smiled, raising his arms to his sides and conjuring a salvo of white thorns. One for each of them, and an additional one for the grey haired man who helped to kill him. Louis disappeared.

Then… everything stopped.

Everything hurt.

A searing pain hit him all at once, as if something had just been-

...oh. That's because it was. A large blade made of crimson metal sprouted from his chest. His thorns shattered, the miasma clearing.

"...Leave this to me." Louis' voice spoke from just behind him, breaking mid-sentence. Out of the corner of his eye, the Queen could see a tear running down his face and staining his mask.

In another surge of pain, the weapon was ripped out of him.

The Queen's body fell to the floor, blue blood staining the stones, and after that…. Black.

In the days that followed, Mia had taken the place of the Successor of the Breath. She sat in the Ridge of Frozen Souls, silently sleeping in the crypt that her brother had built around himself. She clutched the hat that Nikola wore, hugging it close to her chest.

Yakumo took the place of the Successor of the Claw. He sat in the City of Falling Flame, reflecting on the things in his past in the crypt built by his best friend.

Jack took the place of the Successor of the Throat, biding his time for the rest of his days in the Crown of Sand. The place built by his one and only companion, lost due to the greed of another successor.

Karen still sat in the Cathedral of the Sacred Blood, underneath the crypt Aurora had built to defend both her and herself. She remained the source of Blood Beads, which revenants continued to fight for until everything simply just… ceased to be.

And at the top of it all… Louis sat on the bloody throne in the Gaol of the Stagnant Blood, lamenting over what he was forced to do. He'd live out the rest of his days on that throne, maintaining the mist surrounding the world they knew as home.

He'd never forget. Not after ten, fifty, or even a thousand years. The burden he carries will forever be in his mind.

Back in the city where she had first met him, Io sat at the base of a bloodspring that had sprouted many days ago. One she'd helped to bring forth. She leaned against a blade that had been embedded in the ground beneath the roots, slowly drifting off to sleep. In the last moments before she drifted off, she gently reached up towards the handle of the sword, used in countless battles between the times that she'd been here. So many Lost had fallen to this blade… so many times it saved her life.

"Rest well…."

After that…. She drifted off, her form turning to ash in the quiet breeze that carefully shook the leaves around it.

For the rest of time, the necklace that hung around the handle would remain there, lightly jingling when the breeze came by to greet it in the early morning sun.

Floating through the darkness, the Revenant could hear voices. Countless conversations. People that he never knew nor had the chance to meet. The voices of Jack, Silva, Karen, Aurora… countless others that he fought alongside but never got the chance to know.

He didn't know how long he was floating through this darkness before something finally caught his eye. A bright light was shining above him. It stuck out, especially since in this endless expanse, he couldn't see his own hands, even if they were in front of his face.

Slowly, he made his way towards it.

Upon reaching it, he blinked slowly, looking up towards a crimson sky. A crimson sky, a hood of black and silver, a head of white hair, and a gaze as gold as the sun.

"Welcome back."