ACT XIV : EXTRICATION
Yes, the time has come!
I shall be resurrected, and none will stand in my way...
You all shall bow to my might!
Even you, my child... You will realize... just how wrong you were to stand against me.
Death! Death to them all!
Nightmare sheathed the blade on his back and turned to Megumi. "It is ready."
She nodded. "It is still early. We can leave today. But first, come back with me to the castle... I have a gift for you."
He followed along behind her, not caring what this "gift" was. He was with her, and with her, he was whole, complete. No emptiness of any kind plagued him when he was with her... This feeling could not be brought on by anything else, not human souls, not all the power Lucifurius could offer him.
For the first time, he knew real happiness. And that was the only gift he would ever need.
Even taking into consideration what the gift was. Megumi had led him to the armory, where, in a segregated corner, mounted on the wall, was a new suit of azure armor, even more finely made than the last, and a large zweihander. Both seemed to have been tailor made for him.
"I had the blacksmith make it," Megumi said as he examined it. "Your armor now is too big for you, which drastically reduces its protection factor. And since you'll be ridding yourself of Soul Edge... You need a new sword."
The sword was roughly the same size as Soul Edge, adorned with spikes on the unsharpened end of the blade and a wicked hooklike cutout at the tip. The hilt was made of steel with a rough leather strip wound around it. Etched above the hilt was the blade's name : ECLIPSE.
The armor was somewhere close to the color of a late afternoon sky, deep blue with gold around the edges and making up the runic designs patterned down the center of the chestplate. The helmet closely resembled the first he wore - though it was infinitely more ornate.
Megumi took it from him when he took it from its mount. "Of course, this you only get if you promise not to wear it all the time."
He smiled, for once a genuine smile and not a sneer twisted by madness. "I promise. Thank you."
She caught him off guard when she stepped forward and pulled him into an embrace, which, after a hesitation, he returned. "You are welcome. Now, make your necessary preparations, and meet me at the city gate when you are ready to leave."
Nightmare was outfitted in his new armor, minus the helmet, and carrying the Eclipse when he met Megumi at the front gates, growling in frustration when he realized Ismaire was with her.
"Does she haveto come?" he asked Megumi with a frown.
"She insisted," Megumi stated hopelessly, shooting him an apologetic look.
"Oh, the playing human really is clever, Clunky. I almost didn't recognize you. Unfortunately, just having the countenance of a human doesn't make you any less a monster." Ismaire smirked at him.
He glared at her, then glanced back at Megumi. "'Clunky'?"
Megumi appeared to be hiding amusement as she answered him. "It's her new nickname for you. Because of the armor."
"Well, if we're all finished with standing and waiting for the grass to grow, I propose we leave," Ismaire declared, heading off down the hill.
Keeping a slight distance, Nightmare and Megumi followed after her.
The weather was nothing short of awful as they began the trek to Caer Pelyn, which was close to Ostreinsburg. Some greater force was drawing Nightmare there, and he could tell just by feel that they were headed in the right direction.
Ismaire trudged on a few yards ahead of them, a muffler pulled up over her face and a general look of discontent settling as her permanent expression.
Deciding that she was enough out of earshot with the wind blowing, Nightmare looked over at Megumi and said, "I've noticed something."
She looked over with a faint smile. "You have? And what might it be?"
"You seem to know quite a bit about me. Enough to make me wonder."
"I know all these things about you because, indirectly, we the Elementals of the order have been watching you since you were first created. We were waiting for the day you began to separate from Lucifurius's control."
They had been watching all that time, and he had been entirely unaware of it. The fact was almost frustrating, but then, if they had not, he never would have met Megumi, and he would still be a mindless puppet to his creator. "Well, you know all there is to about me, and I know almost nothing about you... I hardly see how that can be considered fair."
She laughed. "That is because, no offense meant, but there is far more to know about me."
"That doesn't matter. I still want to know."
"Alright. Well, you already know that I am a member of Azoth's Order - a high priestess, I suppose I would be considered as an Elemental. What that means is that I have been gifted with the ability to manipulate my element - wind. I can create anything from a gentle breeze to a raging typhoon. I can take the air straight from my enemy's lungs and suffocate them. I can move at speeds no human could ever hope to achieve. And as the wind travels to all places in this world, I hear its secrets whispered whenever my mind wanders. The things in this world... At times, I think it woul be easier just not to hear what it has to tell."
He said nothing, waiting for her to continue.
"And I am immortal. I was born one-hundred fifty-six years ago, though I will forever appear not a day older than seventeen. Immortality is... a curse, and a burden. I have watched all those close to me grow old and die while I remain forever trapped in youth and life, serving Azoth."
He knew there had been something about her - the deep wisdom in her eyes, the way she had a certain quality that seemed so experienced, so world-weary.
Now he finally understood why.
"Of course, Azoth recognizes that to spend eternity alone is unbearable, and he granted us the ability to share it with one other person. Some have gone many centuries before finding the one they share their eternal life with."
"And you?"
She smiled at him. "I believe I've found mine."
As much as he wanted it to be true, he still found it a little surprising. "You'd give something that significant, that unchangable... To me?"
"I can. And I will." She lowered her voice so that it was certain Ismaire could not hear her. "When all this is over, with the permission of the other Elementals, we will take part in the ritual, and I will share with you my immortality."
The idea of being with her forever - nothing to keep them apart - filled him with such unabashed happiness that, for a while, he forgot about the task at hand, and seldom noticed the call of the dark energy that guided him to the black temple, to its depths, where Lucifurius would be released and resurected into physical form, and Nightmare would be rid of his control entirely.
It took another four days to reach the temple, and by the time they did, the call was so strong that whenever Nightmare stopped moving, he felt anxious; he had to keep moving forward.
The temple had obviously been magnificent when first built, but now it was crumbling to nothingness. Nightmare walked, guided by the pull of the dark energy, to the center room of the temple, wherein a huge altar was built, etched with runes that were fading and disintegrating with the rest of the temple.
"Hope I get a chance to take the bastard's head off before anything," Ismaire muttered as Nightmare set the sword on the altar.
Now, curse your fate, for I am reborn! None shall remain in my wake... This world and all others will fall before me!
Beg for mercy now, while you still possess the ability to do so!
The very air seemed to stagnate in the room, thickening with a choking amount of dark power, as the sword was swallowed in a shadow that absorbed it and began to take corporeal shape.
The being that emerged resembled a man, with night-black hair that fell to his waist, parting in places on his head to reveal horns, two where each of his ears should have been, and two at the top of his forehead. One eye was the same odd sage-green with flecks of orange that the sword's eye had been, and the other was bright, peircing crimson. He was garbed in robes of black and deep red that at the bottom revealed three-clawed feet. He regarded Nightmare with a twisted, manic sneer.
"And now I am reborn, and you will rue the day you ever stood against me, child."