Prologue: Ignition Point
If I had to pinpoint when in my life I ended up on the path I decided to take, the day I met them… I'd say it was when I was about thirteen years old.
I will fully admit, I grew up quite lucky considering the world I was born into.
The son of a well renowned Duke, part of a bloodline known for producing exceptional dark knights, the works. In a world where magic and swordsmanship served as the hallmarks of prowess, I couldn't have asked for a better starting point than what I was born into. Growing up in wealth and comfort was just a bonus to it.
Though considering my father was also a former soldier, I was also lucky to have a role model who was keen not to let me end up a spoiled brat like other noble children my age. Though… well I do have to question the mindset it takes to decide you're going to have your ten-year-old son take part in barely toned-down training regiments meant for soldiers. Which at one point involved dragging me up to a mountain to do survival training for a week.
I suppose the results speak for themselves, really.
But… I wasn't the only child in this family.
I had an older sister. A great one, someone I could look up to and compete with as we trained with our father to hone our skills and find where our talents as dark knights lay. All in all, what you could call a pretty idyllic childhood.
At least… until that happened. That damned curse… or at least, that was my thought at the time.
See, being able to use magic isn't always this clean thing in our world. Nobody knows why, but sometimes women, especially when they're younger, have a chance to come down with a magical disease known as "Possession", which causes the magic energy in their bodies to run amok and begin tearing them apart from the inside.
It starts off simple, hard to notice. Occasional loss of control over magic is the first sign, something one can often ignore or pass off as a mere slip-up from someone still learning. It's when black blemishes begin to appear that you know what's truly going on.
And… my sister ended up being one of the people to be struck by it.
When someone is Possessed, there's only one fate that awaits them. Death. There's no known way to cure it… so all one can do is end the suffering of the afflicted.
Most families who have a daughter who comes down with it will often do it themselves, if they don't simply disown them and toss them to the winds. For many they see having a child fall to Possession as a shame, a blight on their bloodline. But plenty also can't bring themselves to do something like that to their own child. So, more often than not, Possessed are turned over to the Church where their deaths can be peaceful.
Supposedly.
And that was what happened to my sister as her condition worsened. The last time I saw her, the face she had was a sad one, knowing the odds that the day she left with those priests would be the last she ever saw me and our parents.
Naïve kid I was, I didn't want things to be that way.
So, after taking about three days to make my plan, I snuck out.
Mother had always praised me for being a lot craftier than most kids my age, and Father had probably done a bit too well with his training, because sneaking out of our estate had been almost painfully easy to manage.
So, with little more than a rucksack of some food and the small sword I used for practice for self-defense, I went trotting off on my own to visit the church I knew my sister would be staying at before her condition reached the point of no return.
To say the priest was surprised to see the brother of the girl the Church had just taken in suddenly grace his doorstep was an understatement. Much moreso since I was entirely on my own when I'd arrived.
"Oh my, Young Master Victoria… what brings you here?" asked the kind-faced priest who had been the same one to take my sister away from home.
"I'm here to see my sister," a statement that left the man looking quite baffled. "I know her going to the Church means… that. But I want to see her again before that happens."
"Hahaha, I see. Well, as natural as it is… I must apologize. Your sister is resting, and with her condition worsening by the day, I sincerely don't wish for you to see what happens to her. I'd hate to taint your precious memories with her like that," the priest's words were warm, but… there had been another feeling behind them.
Something I had never told anyone in my short span of life had been a certain skill I had unwittingly developed.
From the first time I could even retain the information, Father had drilled it into my head that the most important thing about using magic was control. How finely you did so, how efficiently you managed it was far more important than merely being born with a high mana capacity. As many of my lessons in swordplay were, just as many were in how best to control my magic power and apply it as efficiently as possible.
Along the way, let's say I made a bit of a surprise discovery about what that could result in.
Sensing the magic power of others is as basic a skill as it comes. Learning to keep your senses open to it was necessary for becoming a skilled dark knight. And I had found my sense for mana was quite sharp. Perhaps a lot sharper than anyone could guess. Whether it was some innate talent, or I had simply trained it to be that way, I wasn't quite sure, but it was probably a mix of both ideas.
Because I couldn't simply sense magic power but feel it. The way it flowed, the minute shifts in its nature from person to person. Even how it moved through the very air and other living beings it coursed through. Somewhere along the way, I found myself being able to read those shifts and get a read on people. Sometimes I listened in on the gossip among the family servants to try it out.
It started off vague, hard to read what it even was. But as I kept practicing, eventually I learned how to read the shifts in someone's mana to see the intent behind their words, the hidden thoughts they wouldn't dare lay bare beneath a lie. Most of the people around me were honest sorts, so their mana reflected that honesty.
Though there was that time I'd caught one of the butlers lying to a maid about some engagement he was supposedly involved in. Had to hand it to him, he sure sounded convincing even when his mana told a different story.
But the priest?
As warm as his words were, as expected of a response as it was to tell a child wanting to see his sickly sister, the feeling I got from his mana told a different story.
The intent behind his words was certainly honest, but not out of kindness. That warmth in his voice was fake. A tone put on to try and calmly dissuade a child from his actions. It wasn't a warm tone trying to calmly put it why I shouldn't see my sister. It was one hiding another reason. Hoping, coldly, that he could bluff me and get me to leave without protest.
But while I knew he was lying… what he was lying about was the question.
So, time to push a bit.
"I know what the Possession does, but…" I started, catching the priest give the slightest of flinches. "I don't want her to worry about me. Please? I just want to be able to say goodbye properly. Can't you do that much?"
"Well…" there was some hesitation in the man's voice. Why would that be, huh? "As I said, she's resting, and it wouldn't do to disturb that rest now, would it? Your desire to see her before she goes is admirable young man, but even I feel she wouldn't wish for her dear brother to see what happens to her."
"Then I can just wait here until she wakes up, right?"
"I'm sure the estate would worry if you were out for too long though."
"So long as I'm back before nightfall they'll just assume I went to train in the woods on my own. Father knows I can handle myself."
"I-Is that so…?" Even without being able to sense it, anyone with half a mind for social cues would have caught how the priest's voice faltered. There wasn't any out to try and convince me to just up and leave anymore, and I knew for a fact my sister wasn't far enough along in her Possession that three days alone would have ruined her entirely. Any logic would have meant there was no reason not to let me see her while I had the chance.
So then why was it the priest's mana was showing just how anxious he was?
"Sir Priest? Is something the matter?" I figured I might as well pry into this. At the time, it really seemed like the best choice. "I know it might be troublesome, but it's just one more time. Please? My sister is here, right?"
Were I aware of the things that I know now, I would have probably shut my trap before that. I didn't have a single clue what I had stumbled on, solely because youthful frustration made me pry at the man for something I saw as so simple at the time.
"Well, while it might be so…" the priest's anxiousness slipped away as he spoke. Assuredness on my part turned into confusion as the sensation I got slid into something else: A kind of demented intrigue. "Actually, do forgive me, Master Victoria. My own concern for your sister's state merely clouded my mind for a moment. You came all this way, the least I can do for her sake before the Possession takes her is help you see her! I just need you to come along…"
It wasn't even my keen sense of mana that sent my instincts firing off. As the priest reached a hand towards me, my fist flew forward, slamming right into his sternum as it gleamed in dark blue magical energy.
"W-What the… from a… child?!" The priest's eyes were wide as he buckled over my fist for a moment, flopping to the ground as I moved to the side.
You can imagine how quickly panic set in for me after that. So, I ran. Taking off into the church and making a mad dash for the stairs leading to the rooms above. My racing mind had already concluded that something was very, very wrong. And naturally my first instinct was to find my sister and get her out of there, consequences be damned even if she was Possessed. The first door I found was the one I threw open… only to find a room totally devoid of even a single person occupying the beds within.
"W-What the…?"
"Well now… now we have to make sure you don't leave!"
The only thing I saw when I wheeled around was a brief flash in my vision, followed by the crack of something slamming into my head right around one of my eyes. Anything else after that was totally gone as I blacked out the moment the impact landed home.
What woke me up was the throbbing in my skull. After that was a cold, damp feeling against my skin. And then a weight on my wrists.
When I was finally awake, sitting up came with a heavy feeling on my wrists, looking down to see them clamped tightly by shackles chained to the wall. And said shackles were lightly glowing… adding to it, any tempt I felt trying to focus mana to my hands absolutely failed, as if the shackles were cutting off the flow entirely.
"Ohhh, would ya' look at that! The curious little guy is finally awake!" A crowing voice yanked my attention up.
In front of the door of what was now all too obvious a dungeon cell were two men, dressed in concealing red robes that hid their features from me except for their builds clad in dark leathers. The one with the crowing voice was slim and scrawny, while his companion was burlier and more wideset. But even with my mana cut off by these shackles, the few traces of it I could use still let me feel out that these two had to be experienced fighters.
"What's even the plan with this kid?" asked the burly man. "Boys can't come down with the Curse, so even if he is the sister of one of the Matches, he's worthless to us."
"My sister's here?!" My gasp was also met with me trying to run to the bars of the cell, being stopped dead by the chains going tight. "Where is she?! Where's Ana?! Where's my sister dammit!?"
"Yeesh, who taught a kid like this to talk like that huh?" the crowing-voiced man chuckled. "So hey, think we should tell him? Not like he's gonna live much longer. Little brat dug a bit too deep for his own good."
"We're talking about the child of a duke here, dumbass."
"So? We just toss the body and make it look like the little shit got jumped by bandits when he snuck out! No big deal."
"Hm… you've got a point. It'll also draw attention away from this area if we move the Duke's attention to the bandits instead."
"See? Now you're thinking my way!"
Even at the age I was then, that callousness they spoke in shook me plenty. These two men were talking about the life of a child without a care at all, like I was as easily discarded as a broken tool. And if they were talking about me like that… then what about Ana?
"So hey, little Duke's son, wanna know the truth about all of this?" The crow-voiced man snickered as I glared at him. "All that stuff about the Possession? Absolute poppycock! It's all shit we made up so stupid people like your folks would toss their kids out for us to nab up when their magic runs wild like that! The Church cleaning up some of them is certainly some help… but trust me, they're as in on it as our organization is too!"
"W-What?!"
"Possession is real, don't mistake him," said the gruffer man as his companion continued to cackle. "However, whatever you've been told about it is all lies. Its true name is the Curse of Diabolos, and it manifests in those who carry the blood of the Three Heroes within them. I'm sure even a child your age knows the stories."
Of course I did. The story of Diabolos and the Three Heroes who defeated him: Olivier, Freya, and Aurora. It was something anyone would know from story books and myths, so well known the Heroes were practically worshipped alongside the gods within our religion. But it was just a legend, a fairytale. Mythos in scripture.
"See, now here's the funny thing: That fairy tale is actually true!" the crow-voiced man chuckled. "The only people who get effected by the Curse are people with the blood of the Heroes in them, each one of them being descended from the Three. Meaning the only reason your oh so beloved sister fell victim to it was because you and she are descendants of one of the Heroes! Ain't that funny?!"
"But… if we're descended from the Heroes, shouldn't the Church…"
"Venerate their descendants and honor them?" The gruff man scoffed. "As he said, the Church is in on this as well. The stories of Possession are all a fabrication to snuff out the descendants of the Heroes and so we can use that power for our own ends. Your sister is what we call a Match… a shame she was hardly useful."
"… what?" When those words left that man's mouth, my blood ran cold. Was. As in… "No… no! You're lying! Ana is too tough for that to happen! There's no way she'd be…"
"Dead?! Ahahaaaa!" The crow-voiced man laughed again. "Oh trust me poor little lad, even if she isn't I doubt she's in anything resembling a good state. She'd probably welcome death after these past few days. So sorry to say, but you'd have been better off just staying at home and doing what everyone else does. But hey… you think a male descendant really is useless to us, eh?"
"What are you getting at?"
"I'm saying it ain't like we gotta use the kid the same way we use the Matches… there's other things we could use him for, don't you think? Someone needs to see if those pills are gonna have adverse effects."
"You're saying you don't trust them?"
"I'm saying we got a hell of a chance! If the sister had the Curse activate, who's to say the brother ain't got potential we can make use of? Hell at worst if we don't kill him we can just make another Child of Diabolos out of him, might even have the potential to be a 1st."
At some point, while I had heard their conversation, I hadn't processed it either. A part of me had shut down the moment the thought of Ana being dead had sunk in. I knew it was inevitable after she had come down with the Possession – or rather, Curse – but I still hadn't been fully prepared for the idea despite what I had thought. So, all I could do was sit there in stunned silence as the two men spoke.
And it wasn't until I heard the door clank open that my mind was drawn back to reality.
"What are you doing?" asked the burly man, his limber companion flashing a glass vial full to the brim of small red balls. "Are you kidding?! You're actually going to see what they'll do to him?"
"Ah relax, I'm only going to use a few. If it kills him, eh, so what? If he lives though, well… then we can send him off to be fixed up like the others. His family can be handled after that yeah? Not like that Dukedom is that important for Midgard."
"W-What are you going to do?!" Fear made me scramble away as the limber man approached, but I hit the wall, and his long strides met me soon enough as he stamped a foot onto my chest.
"Don't worry too much, it's just a fancy little bit of medicine! What, mama never make you take some of it when you catch a cold? Hahaha, though I guess this medicine is gonna be a bit different… ah, gonna need to take off these mana shackles first, might fuck it up. And then I'd be in some deep shit! Hey, get in here and hold the kid for me after I take these off!"
"If this goes wrong you and I are in for it, you know that?"
"Ah like Lord Mordred is gonna find out! It's just one brat. Now shut up and help me."
The gruff man didn't say another word as he strode in. The shackles were undone, and just as I started to feel the slightest bit of mana begin to come back, I was grabbed by the gruff man while the limber one popped the cork on the glass vial. Dropping at least five of the red pills onto his hand while pocketing the vial, the now free hand grabbed me by the chin and forced my mouth open.
With a sadistic chuckle, the man shoved the pills into my mouth and forced my jaw shut. My attempt to resist swallowing was met with a sharp smack to the head that dazed me quickly enough. And then slowly, the man forced my jaw to bite down onto the pills, slowly crunching them between my teeth and letting my body's own dazed impulses do the rest to swallow them.
I then felt nothing but pain as I was released. I knew I was screaming, but I couldn't hear it as it felt like my body was lit on fire. Every inch of it was in pure pain as I could feel my own magic power return and then run amok. I clawed at the floor, desperately looking from a release from the agony as I saw my own arm start to burst with blood as rampant magic power sparked along it in harsh reds. Muscles felt like they were rending, bones tearing, even my mind ripping apart from the searing magic power running wild through my body as I screamed and howled in that cell.
"Remember, Rias, using magic is about control, not the amount. As long as you can control it, your magic will never betray you. And if it does run wild, reign it in, grapple it until it submits. That is what it takes to be a proper dark knight. Understand?"
A moment of clarity, a recollection of my father's first and most ingrained lesson from the moment he started teaching me. And while it was still sheer agony, while my throat still tore in a primal scream, I started to find it. A focus, drawing myself inward and focusing only on that sensation I knew came from magic.
I imagined a flame running out of control. A blaze let loose and given enough fuel to send it running amok. And I then imagined bringing that fire under control. Not dousing it, but instead focusing it. Gather that flame inward, take it, and focus it somewhere else than letting it run wild. Grab hold of it… don't let go and pull it back towards me.
"Hey… the hell is happening?"
"He… he stopped screaming? Is he dead? Come on… I don't want to have wasted these red lozenges like that."
The pain began to subside. My focus began to return, and where there had been a burning agony, now I felt a different kind of heat. It was just like the first time I'd used magic. The feeling of new power… power that was under my control.
"Tch, his body didn't even start changing. C'mon, least you could do is give me results, shitty little brat!"
I heard footsteps coming towards me. And just as a boot came sailing towards my head, my body reacted.
I was used to moving quickly. Dark knights were known for their speed and agility in combat, so such a motion was simply natural. But now, my body felt lighter than ever as I moved, dashing away from the kick and to the opposite wall. My eyes trailed to my right arm, seeing that, surprisingly, while it was still dripping blood, where the skin had broken had also sealed up. Whatever I'd done, whatever I'd taken control of, it had done a lot more than stopping the pain.
"What the…" the scrawny man gasped as I slowly stood. "Did he… n-no way! That's fucking impossible! Even just one red lozenge is enough to send someone who hasn't been prepared on a rampage, and I fed him five! How the hell did this brat bring it under control!?"
"He what?!" The gruff man drew the sword at his hip as his companion yelped.
"I just focused…" croaked, flexing my left hand. "Father… taught me how important it was to control my magic a few years ago. As long as I can control my magic… doesn't matter what happens to it. And right now… I don't know what it is… but I feel a lot better than I was a few seconds ago."
"Tch, take him down!"
The two men lunged with their swords drawn. With the high stance they started from, it was clear they were using the Bushin Style, a pretty common one in Midgard. Meaning I hadn't been taken that far from home.
Driven by that renewed feeling of power within me, I stepped forward, mana surging down my legs to move as quickly as possible, more funneling into my right arm as I aimed for the limber man. In an instant, my fist slammed right into his gut, and I could feel the bones shattering under the blow as I wound up slamming the man into the wall. When I drew my fist back, blood coated my fingers as the man buckled to the floor, blood pouring beneath him as he collapsed.
"Unbelievable…" the gruff man turned to me with his sword raised, while I almost mindlessly picked the other man's sword up off the ground. It was far too large for me, but frankly that didn't matter right now. I could make use of it. "To think we'd find a child that can take control of a red lozenge induced mana outrage without preparation… incredible."
"Hey…" I drawled, looking to the man with a wide-eyed expression that I knew had no emotion behind it. "You said my sister is here, right? Where is she… where's Ana?"
"Hehe, your sister no longer matters here, boy," The man raised his sword as I did the same, a grin cracked beneath his hood. "You have become far more interesting to the Cult's aims than you were. You have far too much use to us now with that power you've awakened… so time to tame you!"
Fighting in a closed space like this really wasn't that ideal for a dark knight. Most, anyway. My father, smart man he was, knew a critical weakness of most styles was a lack of defense. With the speed and power dark knights fought at, most martial arts would eschew defense in favor of agility and attack speed, fights preferably being ended in as few blows as possible rather than getting into range and duking it out, where even a millimeter of difference could make the choice between who won and lost the engagement.
So, an enclosed space like this would do little more than hamper the speed most would prefer to fight at. But even knowing that…
"Slow…"
The movements of the gruff man, while assuredly fast, registered slow to my eyes. When I moved in turn as his blade started to move, I felt myself moving faster than him. Magic coursed along my sword, the blade starting to burn white from the power I focused into it. And when it struck home, I felt and heard two things.
One, the shriek of breaking metal as the man's sword clashed with mine, it's blade shattering on impact with my own. The second sound was the squelch of the magic-powered sword cutting into his torso, shattering bone and rending muscle as I carried it through him. What I felt was… almost nothing. Barely a hint of resistance behind my swing as I dashed past the man, blood splattering on the floor in my wake as he fell to the ground in two halves, oozing blood and guts from the bisection. Dead without even another word, his face underneath his hood plastered into a shocked expression.
"… so, that's what it feels like to kill someone," I mumbled as much as I stepped away from the body, looking down at the scrawny man, still bent over and groaning in pain, but very much alive on the ground. "Oi, answer me… where's my sister in this place?"
"Kagh…" the man coughed as I kicked him, then raising the sword above his neck. "She's… in another wing of this base… a few halls down and… through a steel door… where we keep all the Matches we have for… experiments. But… doesn't matter… hehe… there's a damned army of us between here and… there… doesn't matter if you brought that… outrage under control… you're not… gaaagh… escaping from here in one piece… and we'll make use of you… you'll see."
"I think I will."
With some added force, I plunged the sword right into the man's neck, hearing its tip slam against the stone floor and then scream into the stone.
Without a care after that, I yanked the sword free and stepped out of the cell, starting down the hallway, my mind only set on cutting down anyone and everything in my way until I found Ana, wherever she was in this damn place.
And it was as I approached the branch in the hallways that that encounter happened. The one that changed my entire perspective on this world and decided my place in it.
Another man in robes came running down the intersection, likely to inform the two I had killed about something. Whatever it was, he was in a hurry. I raised my stolen sword, ready for a fight. But, before the man could so much as notice me, something lunged out of the shadows, running him through with a dark sword and sending him to the ground.
"Hmm, seems this path wasn't quite the right one… the other way is likely where I should have looked."
Standing atop the fallen man was a small figure. A child just like me by their size. A girl, clad in a black, gold accented suit of a style I didn't recognize. Long, golden hair flowed down her back like a curtain as she looked across the hall while her right hand adjusted the grip on the black sword she held. Turning towards me, her face was obscured by a mask, but the blue eyes beneath it still stood out as her gaze fell onto me. And further, the pointed ears of an elf stuck out from that golden hair.
"A boy? This is new... You!" She raised her sword towards me, and I quickly fell into a defensive stance. "Your magic power is strong. Are you with the Cult of Diabolos too?"
"Cult of… what?" My stance didn't falter, but my simmering anger was doused for a moment by confusion. "I don't know what's going on here! These guys… I don't know who they are, but they kidnapped me from a church. I'm looking for my sister, and they said she's somewhere in this place!"
"So, you're not with them?"
"Obviously not! One of them tried to kill me… forced me to down these weird red pills. They… did something… sent my mana out of control. It would've torn my body apart if I didn't get it under control."
"You stopped your own rampaging mana?" The masked girl lowered her sword. "Interesting… and you say you're looking for your sister?"
"Yes! She's Possessed but… even if she might already be dead, I at least… want to find her," getting the words out as hard at this point. With my mind coming back down from the adrenaline rush, the nature of my situation was starting to seep in. And what welled up was fear and worry… fear that this would all be for nothing, worry that the worst result was the one waiting for me. But… "Please! I… I'm not sure I can find my way through here. My head's all a mess after what happened… please."
"Alright," With a swipe of her hand, I saw the girl's sword suddenly melt away, sinking into her sleeve like it was always a part of it. "Follow me. I'm about to take the path one of my comrades took. Can you keep pace with me?"
"I-I should be able too."
"Good."
"H-Hold on a moment!" As the girl moved to hurry off, I called out. Thankfully, she stopped. "Uhm… my name is Artorias Victoria… the girl we're looking for is named Ana. And… you are?"
"Call me Alpha. I'm a member of Shadow Garden, a group dedicated to fighting the Cult of Diabolos… the people who've taken your sister and now tried to kill you. In that, we share something in common. I can't promise you we'll find your sister alive, but… at least I can help you find her. Now let's go. I can handle any soldiers we run into."
"I can fight too! I won't be slowing you down."
The girl, Alpha, gave a slight smile as she turned around. As he started down the hall, I did catch her say something as well.
"You have eyes like his… interesting."
I didn't have a clue who she was talking about… but it also felt strangely complementary at the same time. Like she was giving me high praise by some standard I didn't have a clue about at the time.
I think the one thing I wasn't expecting that day was that I would end up learning something. Well… okay it's one thing to learn that apparently there's this cult that kidnaps and experiments on the girls who come down with that Curse, but what I mean is something different in what I learned.
As I followed Alpha through the halls of the facility or whatever it was, I couldn't help but pay rapt attention to the way she fought.
For someone who was likely at most a year older than me, her skill with a sword was like someone with twice the experience. Not a movement was wasted, each swing well aimed and without any more effort than necessary put into it. Even the flow of her magic was without waste. And every last bit of it was so natural it looked easy as she cut a swathe through whatever cultists remained in our path. So much so I barely even had stragglers to pick off as he proceeded to the wing the Cursed girls were supposedly at.
In short, it was swordsmanship brought about by someone with an exceptional kind of talent. And for the brief time I got to watch it, I made sure to ingrain Alpha's swordsmanship into my memory. I wanted to learn from it, see what it was she was doing that I could replicate, what stood out and what I could refer to with refining my own swordsmanship to follow suit.
It was in truth only for a few minutes, but that was more than enough time to see at least some basics. Enough to commit what I'd seen to memory.
"This should be it," Alpha finally came to a stop once we reached a heavy wooden door. Before she opened it, she let her hand rest on the handle. "Artorias, as I said, I can't promise your sister is still alive. We… Shadow Garden does what we can to rescue those the Cult takes, but not everyone is able to be saved. I just want you to be prepared for the worst."
"… you're a kind person," Alpha gave a small smile at my reply. "Honestly, I was shocked when those guys said Ana might already be dead but… I was also preparing myself for the idea anyway. As far as my parents are concerned, Ana died as soon as her Curse grew too severe. But I want to see her face one more time… even if it's only in death."
"You're quite strong for someone our age… though I'm quite the same I suppose. Alright then, if you're prepared."
Alpha pushed the door open and led the way in. What we found were more rows of cells, most of them empty as we proceeded along. But a few had occupants. Most of them what to expect from those who'd been Cursed and gotten into the late stages of it. Those whose bodies had rotted and warped beyond any kind of humanity, turning into lumps of flesh sparking with out-of-control magic power. Others were deathly still, not a hint of life remaining in the girls as Alpha and I carried along.
And in the elf's eyes, I could see a mix of pain and fury. Pain at the sight of these girls and their suffering, fury at the mere fact they were being put through it to begin with. It was clearly a very personal kind of feeling. One I wasn't going to pry into.
Eventually, Alpha came to a stop, looking into one of the cells.
"Silver hair… could this be her?" the elf looked to me as I approached the cell, looking into it myself.
And I felt my heart sink immediately. Up against one of the walls was a still figure, dressed in ragged whites with silver hair matted by dirt and blood. Skin turned chalk white but marked all over in blackened blemishes, some caked in dried blood. And the thing that made my chest tighten the most, a jaw covered in darkening blood, some still oozing slightly from the lips.
"Ana…" her name came out like a gasp. Alpha forced open the door and let me enter the cell. Moving slowly, all I could do was process the site of my sister's body before me. When my fingers finally brushed against one of her cheeks, the coldness of her skin made it sink in all the more. As the tears began to fall, I slowly wrapped my arms around my cold, lifeless sister. "I'm sorry… I should've been faster. Maybe… I'm sorry, Ana…"
"She bit her own tongue to avoid what they would do to her…" Alpha's words were quiet but observant as she entered the cell. I felt a hand gently come to my shoulder; a soft, sympathetic hold being given by the elf. "Had either of us found this place faster, maybe she could have been saved. But… her defiance at least meant you wouldn't find her in a worse state than this. I'm sorry you couldn't tell her goodbye properly."
"You… don't need to apologize," I spoke through the tears as I drew back, but I didn't want my hands to leave Ana. Not yet. "Alpha, I… I want to bury her. Doesn't matter where just… away from here. Somewhere in the woods… where she'd be able to rest easy. Please… help me."
"I can do that much for you."
"… thank you."
Not much else stuck in my memory as Alpha helped me remove Ana's body from that hideout. As we were leaving, she'd spoken to some other girls dressed in black, but I wasn't in a mind to pay much of any attention to it before she set off with me to make distance from the cave we'd ended up leaving.
We ended up walking for a few hours, the only light for a while being the moonlight above and what Alpha provided with some magic while I carried Ana.
Once we were far enough away, far enough that the cave, the Cult, was so far behind us, I finally found a place to stop there in the woods. A clearing with a rather large tree sticking above the others, making a clearing I knew Ana would have liked to rest in after training.
A lot like one back near my family's grounds.
"Is this alright?" I only gave Alpha a nod. "How about burying her by the tree? So she can rest under its shade."
"That sounds good."
It was only silent after that, Alpha and I got to digging a large enough grave using magic to move aside the dirt and make the grave deep enough. Once the task was done, Alpha helped me lower Ana into the grave, and I didn't remove my eyes from her for a second as we began placing the moved dirt back in, slowly watching my sister's remains vanish from sight. Once the grave was filled, I put together a small cross made of branches to mark it, just as the sun was starting to rise over the tree line.
"Alpha…" Once everything was settled, I finally decided to speak. "The Cult… you and your friends are fighting against them, right?"
"Yes. Me and the other members of Shadow Garden… we're all people like Ana. Those who were persecuted by their falsehoods, descendants of the Heroes… we were the lucky ones, saved by our founder to become strong enough to hunt down the Cult and strike them down."
"Then I guess your founder is a pretty extraordinary guy, huh?" There was a bit of sardonic anger coming through, but I doubt anyone could blame the sudden frustration I felt. Suddenly hearing people like Ana could be saved. That she could have been saved… only if fate had been kinder to her. "Alpha, I want to fight the Cult too. What they're doing… it's a lot more than just kidnapping the girls with the Curse, isn't it? It's more… one of them talked about making me a… Child of Diabolos or… something."
"We're still looking into that ourselves… but it's probably lucky you avoided having it happen to you," Alpha took a moment to look me over, her gaze lingering on my eyes for a while. "Fight the Cult too, hm? After what you've been through, there's no way I could blame you for making such a decision."
"You're not about to do that thing where you say I'm better off trying to move on, are you?" My snappy reply earned an amused chuckle from the elf.
"Quite the opposite… though compared to us in Shadow Garden, perhaps you're better off remaining in the light. Artorias, how old are you right now?"
"Thirteen. I'm going to be sent off to the Royal Midgar Academy like any other noble in two years. As the son of one of Midgar's Dukes, it's something I can't really avoid."
"I see… two years," Alpha held up two of her fingers. "Spend the next two years training even harder than you would otherwise. Learn to refine that power you've gained and forge it into your own and refine your swordsmanship to as fine a point. While I can't bring you into Shadow Garden like we have others, I do believe we can help you get strong enough for when the time comes… if you're willing, that is."
"You'd… do that?"
"Of course. One of our aims is to help all those who the Cult is persecuting. Besides, at this point, I think trying to keep you out of it would only cause you to do something reckless trying to uncover it yourself."
I couldn't look Alpha straight in the face. That accusation was pretty on point.
"Then… please," I took a low bow before the elf. "Alpha, please, help me gain the power I need to fight the Cult of Diabolos like you are. After what I saw in there, I can't just go back to how my life was. Knowing that kind of thing is happening… I won't let it stand."
"And neither will I," I looked up when I saw Alpha extend a hand to me, and as our eyes met, her other hand was removing her mask, revealing her face to me in full. Despite our young ages… it was hard to say she was anything but beautiful. "When the time comes in two years, I hope we can become strong allies fighting the Cult of Diabolos… us in Shadow Garden from the shadows, and you from the light."
"Shadows and light, huh… hehehe… ironically kind of fitting considering my family's sword style."
Taking Alpha's hand, the two of us gave a firm shake to affirm the deal between us. Two years of training – somehow more intense than what my father puts me through – so I can master this power and be ready to face the Cult myself… and perhaps with what allies I can also gather in the meantime. Lucky me then, it now seems I have allies who can help me learn everything I'll need to know.
"Also…" Alpha placed her mask back on as she turned to leave the clearing. "Might you need help getting home?"
"Ah…. Yeah… I uh… have no idea where we are. Getting back to the Victoria Estate is… yes please I would appreciate the help."
The elf gave a light laugh as I bowed even lower, all to hide the sudden flush on my face from the ensuing bit of embarrassment.