White felt his muscles give way as he stood still under the scrutiny of hundreds upon hundreds of monocled men, all looking down at him, flying in the sky with serene smiles.
He gulped. The sound was loud and the silence was heavy.
Just then, one of them spoke.
"Well well, aren't you a peculiar one. Stealing from the floor of death like this. And such a large amount of souls no less."
"Hmm. Burning souls for power. Quite a practical method, but crude nonetheless."
"Pathetic."
"Say, what shall we do with this thief?"
"Ew. Don't group him with us. He's little more than a random insect."
One by one, the men and women spoke. No, White was not even sure if any of these were humans, or any other being he had encountered in his long life in the tower. This... this was something else entirely.
He did not move. His instincts told him better than that. If he moved, he would be devoured, just like his own victims had been devoured by himself. He would lose himself and be assimilated.
He did not know where such a reactions came from, but he trusted his instincts against his own judgement.
Did I wake some primal being up? What the hell is this? He could not help but complain to the gods about his misfortune. It seemed that he was forever cursed to be like this, unable to climb the terrifying heights of the tower, remaining forever in the shadow of his own father.
"Um-" Just as he spoke, one of them raised his hand.
"Let's not delay any longer."
The air changed.
"White!" Karaka yelled, the shinsu around him changing and churning like a raging wave. Theolis screamed, but the sound dulled. Karaka who had sprouted dark tendrils to grab Theolis and White stopped. All activity ceased, all became a static.
The monocled horde smiled simultaneously and adjusted their monocles.
And then, they disappeared.
The room fell back into silence.
Karaka felt himself regain strength over his body and looked around dumbfounded.
What was I about to do? He wondered. He put down Theolis and looked ahead at White.
"White?" Karaka called out. The ancient slayer did not reply. He merely stood there, motionless.
"White." He called out again. No answer. He called out again, a third time.
And so, the ancient slayer twitched and turned back.
There was something off about him. A smile hung at his face, pointed the slightest bit upwards and his eyes gleamed with a strange light. His white hair that cascaded down from his head looked a bit crooked and the way he stood was unlike him.
"...White?" Karaka called out again. Behind him, Theolis tried to scoot away slowly.
"Yes?" White replied, his voice calm and unfazed.
"Are you good?"
There was no reply.
White turned back around and spoke, "The souls are bound by a contract. Any soul bound by it cannot leave the floor of death. And so, by means of me devouring the souls, I am now bound by the same spell I ridiculed. A clever play. Simple, but difficult to break." He said, moving forward.
He put his index and middle finger into his mouth and gagged.
In the next moment, his long hair receded back into his body and the radiance that surrounded him began to dim. As he pulled his hand out out his mouth, a small ball of light accompanied it.
"So I'll just keep this here again. I will find the souls I need somewhere else." He released the souls and turned back to the two.
"Shall we go?" He said. Karaka could only nod stiffly. He turned back, expecting to find their captive there, however...
"...Where did he go?"
...
A low chuckle rang in the air. Winston stood around, floating silently above the floor of death as his curious eyes scanned the entirety of the floor. In his hand, he swirled a peculiar potion. The bottle held a dark brown liquid that shimmered with a strange grey fog, and glittered with the light of a thousand stars.
The next potion, the gateway to sequence 3. And now, the ritual had been fulfilled.
A smile hung on his face, his eyes gleaming with a thousand colours as he observed the potion with a strange excitement. He knew the chance of death was never zero when consuming a potion, but he felt inclined to take the potion as soon as possible.
It may have been similar to the excitement a child harbours when given a new toy. He had heard about the concept and seen it oftentimes in adults as much as children; but never had he experienced it himself. Now, he felt that he realized it. It was truly a strange sensation; a lingering desire to test something out. Something you can't quiet displace no matter how hard you try.
"When are we taking it?" The avatar that pertained to the Darkness pathway asked him. A veil covered it's face and around it's torso hung 6 arms, each holding a different trinket that symbolized a part of the pathway.
"Right after getting out of the floor of death." Winston replied smoothly.
Floor of Death was volatile. It did not have an administrator, and that was the problem. There was no one to interfere with his ascension, but the fault lay in the environment. Shinsu, as it stood, could warp space time, rip through dimensions and cause singularities and causality shifts. With the shinsu running rampant, and disturbed further by the weight of his ascension, there was no telling how it would mess with his ascension.
More than that, he preferred being on the Hell Train, where shinsu was calmer and he would not face any danger from unknowns.
Insofar as his intuition was concerned that is.
"Well, shall we address the elephant in the room?" Winston said, turning towards the empty air. Slowly, a ripple travelled across it. Then, movement, along the circumference of the ring. A second ripple. A third, a fourth, a thousand.
Innumerable ripples, interacting in countless ways and stirring up the divine water. And then, light.
An effervescence, turned into a distortion in space.
And out, stepped a man, draped in a long white trench-coat and a cigarette in his hand, he looked at Winston with an impassive face.
Darkness had already used concealment and disappeared into the ether.
"Winston Heath." Po Bidau Gustang spoke, his tone measured and polite. "We meet again."
"Indeed we do." Winston straightened his back and hid the potion with masterful control, expertly slipping it out of sight and inside his coat before Gustang could take notice.
"I see you've already taken care of the problem here." Gustang said, looking down at the floor.
"You family heads ought to be quicker. Who knows what might happen in the tower. Your illusion of power can crumble in just a few moments, much less years or millennia." Winston chuckled.
Gustang mimicked his laugh. Then shook his head.
"There's very little danger the family heads can even face in the tower. So long as an irregular does not move against us, we are unbeatable. The existence of shinsu black hole spheres only solidify that case."
Winston shrugged his shoulders, choosing not to speak further on the fact.
"I take it you've already gone through the revolution?"
"Define revolution."
"Training with the God of Guardians."
"Hmm. In a way, yes." Winston nodded. "It was certainly an enlightening experience, though not to the extent I was expecting. It was hardly difficult."
Gustang chuckled again. "You're the first irregular I've heard refer to the revolution as an easy task. Even Urek holds respect for the revolution."
He shook his head and continued. "Moving on." he said. "What do you intend to do now?"
Winston raised a brow, indicating him to continue.
"With the tower, I mean. The Jahad Empire grows restless everyday. Jahad isn't the same man I climbed the tower with all those years ago. He's grown complacent over his position and will do anything to keep things the way they are. You aren't going to be bound by his rules if your previous behaviour is anything to go by and that makes you a target in his eyes."
Winston smiled, "Isn't that the case with all the great families? Too stuck up in their own bubbles of make believe happiness? Too absorbed in the shadow of their own power?"
Gustang nodded, "That's right. We too have grown as such." He stared away into the air, his eyes glossing over slightly. "Though I'm not sure if growth is the right term to use here. Back when I was still climbing... adventuring, I never thought I'd turn out like this."
"Bummer." Winston shrugged. "The ten families have a lot of shame on their hands. Some visible, others not. The curious thing is, no one could rebel even if all of the dirt on your name was revealed. The power dynamic is too shifted." He smiled. "As the one who makes the rules, the one who punishes others for their sins, the one hailed as being just above all, is that truly an accurate system to govern by? A kneeling man and one with a gun can only hold an execution. One with a knife and another with a gun can hold a conversation. But both people with guns? Now that's a true system of governance. Only they can hold a trade, a negotiation.
"Power only holds meaning when it is checked by other sources of power. Power which has no equal is... empty. After all, it gets lonely at the top."
"hmm. This is strikingly refreshing." Gustang muttered. "I must say, it has been a long time since I've been met with such an interesting conversation. More often than not, I'm limited in words by a difference in intelligence."
He chuckled and continued, "I take it that you'll help me?"
Winston feigned surprise. "What gave you that impression?"
"Hmm. Then let me start over. I want to bring down the Jahad Empire." His gaze turned sharp. "I wish to bring down the family heads and deliver them to justice. Make them face the consequences of their actions."
"Ohh." Winston cooed.
"I propose an alliance." He extended his hand to him. "I will burn the tower to the ground, and build a new one atop it's ashes. I will not let the coming generation deal with the same injustice that the tower has suffered through for eons. And I will start by taking down the family heads and the King of the Tower."
Gustang took a puff from the cigarette.
"Will you help me do it?"
"And what will I get in return?"
"An important ally, the force of an entire great family at your disposal and of course, the hand of the princess of the Po Bidau family; just as a way to fully seal the alliance."
Winston stared at the outstretched hand for a moment before his smile widened.
Slouching his hat with his left hand to cover his eyes, he extended his right hand and took Gustang's into his own.
"Sure, I'll help you take it all down."
Lightning blazed under them and cast their shadows to the clouds up above. And so, in the skies above the corpse of a dead god, an alliance was formed between two irregulars.
...
...
...
A/N: Hello hello hello.
It has been quite some time, I'm aware; and let's just say my exam... went not as I expected. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get into medical school from the looks of it, but hey, I'm free for the next month of so.
Seeing that, Imma have to think up new ways to get some money. And so, I'm thinking of officially opening up a patreon. I'll probably not have this fanfic on there, but I've been cooking up a Re Zero fanfic for the last 6 months and have a lot of drafts. I also have a game of thrones fanfic written, at least the first 10 chapters of it; but I haven't read the books in a long long time and can't even remember most of the major characters and happenings so I'll have to re-read the entirety of it.
Anyways, I'll be thankful if you guys can give out some tips about patreon work. I'm quite new to the concept and don't yet know the ins and outs. I have nothing uploaded as of yet, and when I do, I'll upload a lot of chapters at once and post a notice about it.
Another thing, my country is going to war. In other words, I'm fucked. That's especially considering the fact that I live on one of the border states, so if I don't upload, it's probably because a bomb fell on my head.
Crazy how we're actively watching world war 3 develop in real time. I wanna get tf out of this mess but don't have the necessary education to get a good job or the money to get out of here, so... yeah.
Idk where I'm going with this, I just wanted to give the readers a rough outline of my situation. I will try to upload once every 2 days. The preference will be a chapter every day but that may or may not be wishful thinking, so yeah.
Anyway, sorry for the long note. I'm back, and hopefully, the world doesn't fuck itself the moment I come to adulthood.
Cheers~