Crow secret chapter
crow harakiro, citli the bird nurse & the Haruki kubo all sat clutching their knees to the chests and wondering what would happen next and what went wrong.
"I told you guys I wouldn't think we should trust that emoji guy… he was just a manipulative, could control his emotions and make you do things that were untrue. But would not listen! sigh." say Crow to his rapidly declining friends.
"I just love my friends" haruki said, as usual.
CITLI stayed silent, still, lost in thought. A certain memory had resurfaced, and she fought to uncover it. Something terrible, Something ruinous. Her addled mind, a product of her self-medication. She needed to do what she did, to help her "friends", to try and preserve what little was left of the world. All she ever wanted in life was to help people, as much as one person could. But the stress of it, constantly seeing pain, the frozen expression of patients as the life left their bodies… if she didn't take something to numb the pain, she would die too. But her memory suffered for it. She could hardly remember where she was, most times. And she hardly needed to. Medicine was second nature to her, muscle memory, a true prodigy. But, she remembered, now, why she really started doping up. She remembered a vision, one she sacrificed her health and her personhood to bury.
Citli knew this day would come. That she would be a part of the undoing.
Joranheveare, Crow's sword, passed down from his father. He could barely understand its true power, its purpose.
"Your family didn't die, Crow. Not all of them, at least."
"huh?"
"Your father. Did he ever tell you how he got that sword, Crow? What was lost, to forge it?"
"He fought in the war! my dad was a hero and protected the nation for his family and his values and a strong government with well defended borders, a homeland for his people ?"
"Of course." Citli paused, composing her thoughts, a rare moment of clarity. "That artifact once belonged to an entity of the old world, an Angel. There are no more Angels now, Crow. They were all slain, trying to retrieve it. Your father was- is, part of an ancient society known as the World-flayers. Their goals have always been, unclear, to the common man.
"With the death of the last angel, as the last of their sigils burned out, a failsafe activated. At that moment, the first Guardian was born, with intrinsic knowledge of his powers, and their source, and his purpose- to ensure that the Darkness, once protected by Angels, was not fully consumed by the Light of demons, and power-hungry mortals.
"We are of the last mortals alive, us three. And your father, and perhaps Jean, though he seems… different somehow. Do you know what the name of your sword truly means, Crow?
"Lightcarver; Bane of Angels and Devils; The Purity of the Corruptor," Haruki interjected, somberly.
"Ah. I forget, you, too, come from an ancient race, Haruki. Yes, that is its name. And its purpose?" Haruki shrugged. "To amass all the power of the Dark, and finally to banish it, creating a world of untold pleasure- or so its creator was told, by Demons, no doubt.
"The highest priority of any Guardian has always been to avoid being slain by that sword, lest it steal away the last vestige of Darkness, even forsaking the lives of thousands to ensure this. The last Guardian has just fallen, slain by Jean. The legacy has passed to me, for lack of new births. And now I understand, what it was I witnessed so long ago, in a nightmare."
"The Rite of Undoing." Crow spake, as the glass dome above them split. His father stood over them on one side, Jean on the other- now stripped of his form, his true nature revealed.
"I understand now. I am sorry, Citli." Crow stood, and brandished his blade.
"No!" Haruki cried out, and thrust all his lifeforce into Crow, a last-ditch effort to protect everything he had ever known, a primal fear of nonexistence.
Wasted. Crow split the devastation beam asunder, rendering it null, with his blade. He heaved a great sigh of recognition, and slowly approached Citli.
Citli clutched her fists, and stood also, letting her meager possessions fall to the floor. She first quivered, then stilled herself, confident in what she had to do next.