Chapter Sixteen: Last Shadow: Light

I felt my darkness flowing through me, pervading my entire being. I looked down at my hands. They had both become jet black, and I could faintly see a dark, purple aura around them. I could only guess how far the darkness had gone…

I jumped at the rock pillar, slashing at Ereshkigal with my Zangetsu. Even with my darkness-empowered attacks, she was able to block my assaults with slabs of stone, though my blade was cutting through them like warm butter. Through pure, brute strength and fancy footwork, eventually I was able to get to Ereshkigal. I sliced off her left arm before she knew what happened.

Ereshkigal screamed in agony a second after I had cut off her arm, but separated herself from the rest of the crags we were on. She went up at a fast pace now, clearly desperate. I jumped after her, and harpooned my Zangetsu into her platform with the cloth.

A second later, I was above the sinkhole. Apparently, Ereshkigal knew I had latched onto her platform.

"You… really want some… fun, Dark Boy? Here… you go!" she said with the last of her energy. I looked forward, and the mountain I had seen earlier had risen out of the ground, and was now flying at me. I pulled on my Zangetsu to get it out of the rock platform, then let myself fall into the sinkhole, and used my Zangetsu to stop myself in the rock. I waited for the mountain to pass overhead, and then jumped up when I heard it crash into the ocean.

Ereshkigal was still on her platform when I got up there, undoubtedly dead. I went and decapitated her, anyway. Then I proceeded to use my Souba to continually slash at her chest, blood flying everywhere.

"Roy! That's enough!" Amy yelled, hugging me from behind. I hadn't noticed it, but the earth had returned to normal. "Please… stop…" she cried. I felt the darkness leaving me, and dropped my bloodstained Souba.

"Sorry… I don't know what… came over me…" I said, having lost a lot of energy in the battle and from using my darkness. As soon as the darkness had completely left me, either from honest-to-goodness exhaustion or from using my darkness, I passed out.

…but more importantly…

I awoke once again to a clear, starry sky. The clean, distinct scent of seawater almost surrounded me. I sat up in the sand and turned around to find Amy seated in front of a campfire. Then I stood up and walked over to it, hearing Amy cry a little. I sat down opposite her.

"Roy! You're okay!" she shouted, and then came over and sat next to me. I think she tried to hug me again, but I did my best to shrug her off. Romance… isn't my thing, ya know?

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry… about before." I said once she had given up. "I don't know what happened… I guess I just lost control."

"It's okay. Nobody can always control themselves." Amy replied. "Well, that's the last of them, I think." she said, and then quickly put her head on my shoulder by surprise. "Wasn't it great, though? We got to reenact a scene from Naruto!"

"What scene?" I asked her, barely able to restrain myself.

"The one where Sasuke uses his cursed seal for the first time… and just about annihilates all three of those Sound Ninja. It was kind of like that." She answered.

"Yeah, I guess so. Let's just hope what happened to Sasuke doesn't happen to me!" I said with a small smile, and then tried to shrug Amy off again.

"Just a little longer?" she asked me, looking up.

"Tch! Fine…" I muttered, finally submitting.

I suppose, that time gave me some… time to resolve myself… not to give in to my darkness, no matter how dire the situation was. I couldn't give in to it… what the darkness made me into really scared me. I had continued to attack a woman that was already beaten, even after she was dead. It was… inhumane.

As I was thinking, the soft sky and the lull of the ocean drifted me off to sleep…

I awoke to a beautiful sunrise, Amy's head still on my shoulder. I gently set her down on the fine sands, then walked up to the beach and stared into the horizon.

The truth about Charon…