Chapter 16: The Unexciting Climax
The story is now on ON.
The Room had taken on the color of bright red. The walls and floors were nauseating to anyone normal - it all looked like the color of blood, and the smell of iron only heightens that.
To the Batter, the color reminded him of the necessary blood that needed to be spilled in his crusade, the grand mercy kill. To the Omega, it made him feel guilt, for the unnecessarily taken lives. To Epsilon, she felt mystified, as she was genre savvy enough to recognize that this is foreboding of the end, and she wondered how the Batter's crusade would end, and if it's truly something worth sticking by.
They continued on. Aside from the color and smell, this permutation of the Room was pretty plain.
There's something else however, about the smell of the room. It wasn't just blood, but something medicinal…
And so, they passed through the final threshold.
In the middle of the small child's room that they've passed through multiple times before, there was now a young boy.
"..." He is a sickly little thing, dressed in red pajamas, coughing as he looked up at the visitors with shock. The boy had a small bit of meat near him - presumably a meal bestowed onto him - which he grabbed and held up, as a shield.
Very calmly, the Batter declared: "I'm here."
A fear took over Omega. "B-Batter, what are you doing…"
"Please tell me that we're not -" Epsilon tried to plea.
"Purification in progress." The Batter said.
The Judge pranced up the stairs that led up to the platform in the sky, panic accompanying every hop.
Alpha floated behind him, tailing his cat ally. As he does so, he looked behind himself.
Their third party member, Zacharie, accompanied them stepping up the stairs. His mask hid his true emotions, but Alpha guessed that deep down, Zacharie must be feeling worry.
They reach the top of the platform. Nobody is there. But there are signs of conflict: the platform was marked with misplaced hits and there were a few blood splatters here and there. The cat stopped in his tracks, staring ahead in horror. "By the heavens, he's already done it… I'm afraid the Queen has been slain…"
A feeling of numbness threatened to overtake Alpha. "But that can't be it, right? Where the hell's the Batter?"
"Presumably, dealing with the final boss." Zacharie mused. "The Queen is only considered a "final boss" in the traditional gameplay sense, though with how easy this journey's turned into toward the end, I imagine that it wasn't much of a final battle. However. The esteemed Vader Eloha is not the final boss from a narrative standpoint."
Then, the platform suddenly rumbled.
"...It seems that he found him…"
The fight could hardly be called a fight.
Babies are defenseless, after all.
The boy coughed, trying to crawl away, but fails to do so, collapsing almost immediately. He looked up at his killer with his increasingly blurred vision. "I'm… scared of the dark." He said to the Batter weakly, almost pleadingly.
His job done, the Batter finally put his bat away, believing that it would no longer see use. "From now on, there will be no more darkness."
The boy drew one last ragged breath.
And as his body faded from existence, so too did the color of The Room. The red drained, leaving in its place the bleak grays of the purified Zones; effectively, the Room had been purified. In the process, a door had been carved out in the back wall by the purification process.
Omega is too stunned to say anything. But Epsilon wanted to say something - something out of character as well: "Batter… what the fuck? I can't believe you killed that boy…"
Without looking at the Add-On, the Batter retorted, "His name was Hugo."
"..H-how..." Omega stammered, "Do you know that?"
"He was my son."
Without looking back, the Batter marched on.
There's just a long, stretched out, featureless hallway, as pure as everything else.
And at the end is a switch that is currently on ON.
The Batter walked.
Omega and Epsilon followed. It's not as if there was anything they could do - what would even be the point? Even if they chose then and now to betray him, what was there left to save?
They arrive at the end of the hallway.
The Batter approached the switch.
And then: "Stop right there, you imposter."
That's when the Judge sauntered in, followed by Alpha and Zacharie.
"Alpha!" Epsilon exclaimed.
"...Zacharie?" said a confused Omega.
"Heh heh, yep, I'm here." The shopkeeper responded.
"Judge?" The Batter spared him a backwards glance.
The cat walked toward him. "I must say that I had placed the blindest of confidences, the solidest of hopes, and the most sincere belief in you. We can well say that I have erred to the bone." He hissed with controlled anger. "But the real betrayer is rather the one beyond the eye of the cat.
"What have you done, Narrator?"
Wait, what? What have I done? All I've done is tell the story how it is!
"Is the opaque mist of making written adaptations of events really your excuse for writing this tragedy, for killing wife and child? You have not purified this place. You have destroyed it, eradicated it. Immersed it into pristine nothingness."
Before Pablo could continue grilling me, the Batter interrupted him. "It's better like that."
"Better? Like hell it is! At least 'something' is better than 'nothing'!" Alpha yelled. "I should've quit your dumb ass way earlier! I should've known you were shit!"
"As for me, I am tired of helping you." Zacharie explained. "My role as the shopkeeper is over, but I declare that it isn't curtain call for me. I've chosen to take up this new role as optional party member - in Sugar's name."
The Batter turned away from the switch, reaching for his bat, Omega and Epsilon floating at his sides. The Judge stepped toward the Batter, Alpha floating over him, Zacharie standing next to him, hand hidden behind his back suspiciously.
"Narrator!" The Judge called out. "Join me! Expiate the sins with us that we are guilty of by throwing your narrative off track!"
"Don't do that. I need you to narrate the official ending so that I may purify the world." The Batter said.
"The time has now come to render your final and futile judgement!"
And so they stand, awaiting for the ending.
...Um… shit, how do I end this story? Damn, I need to pause this…!
The story is now on PAUSE.
Author's Note: We're doing it fam. We're almost at the end. As I said at the end of the last chapter, I put a poll on my fanfiction profile (reminder to AO3 readers: look for HyperInuyasha's profile) to decide whose ending we follow. As it stands, the poll is currently tied. On July 11th, the poll will be closed - if it's still at a tie by then, I guess I'll flip a coin for the ending I guess.
Thank you for reading up to now.