Another Fraud, Another Fake 2
Have you ever felt like something was missing? A gear, a cog, something in the machine that is life? Something that seems miniscule, yet turns out to be of greater importance than anything else? It gradually gets noticed as time goes on, like a wound that opens more and more over time? It hurt Aki. It hurt her more than anything else. The emptiness, the pain of longing for something that you didn't know existed.
She wanted it gone.
"...Emptiness, Aki? We give you everything you'll ever need." Divine questioned.
"...Everything? Then answer my questions. What is the Witch? This raw manifestation of the power inside me? I feel like... It's a part of me, but a separate consciousness entirely..." Aki requested. She had lost any of the eye contact she had previously maintained with Divine, now staring with eyes devoid of emotion at the mask she gripped in her right hand.
"The Witch? The Witch is your gift. The Witch is our gift to you. The power. It was made for you to use it, to destroy the unworthy scum that dominate our world!"
"...This city is dying of rabies. Is the best I can do to wipe random flecks of foam from its mouth?"
"You fulfil your purpose. And I will fulfil mine. Every psychic on the planet will have their powers recognised, and we will slowly take back civilisation."
"Very well. Should I thank you for this... gift?"
"No. Just do what is required of you. Now, my duty beckons me. Goodbye."
"...Goodbye, Divine..."
Aki was staring at the shards of mirror that littered her dressing table, left alone in her room.
Alone? No. That... thing was with her. The other side of her. It would never leave her. The Black Rose Witch, they called it. No, they called her. It hurt everyone around her, she couldn't control it. But it hadn't hurt her. Why? That, she did not know. But somehow she knew that it would protect her, if just out of needing a vessel.
She could depend on it in a time of need. She couldn't, however, depend on anyone else. Except Divine. And even now, she was starting to doubt him. She had had this power before she had met him or this "Arcadia Movement". The "Witch", unlike anything else, had been with her since the start.
She gently placed the mask onto the table, and gazed into one splinter of mirror. Her eyes, a powerful amber colour, were hard and intelligence with experience. She realised just how much strength she had inside of her. How much of that strength actually belongs to me? More so, how much of it was the Witch's?
The Witch could destroy her at any given moment. But she hadn't.
Aki didn't understand that.
The Witch seemed so... destructive. Bloodthirsty. Harmful. But Aki had built up respect for her after each and every duel. Aki needed the Witch, the Witch was strength. And the Witch needed her, at least merely as a shell. Something to be used and something to channel power.
Realisation flooded over her. The missing thing was the Witch. She needed to commune with the Witch. Somehow. She had no idea how to, however. But she had a lingering suspicion someone else did.
She found him in the hallway outside her room, looking as deep and mysterious as ever.
"Divine."
"Aki, what a lovely surprise. I just finished my project and I was on my way to see if you'd calmed down."