Liminal Reliquary :Crossing The Great Divide

[Nagase]

Nagase stood in absolute stillness behind the towering golden axe, so motionless that she might have been mistaken for a statue had it not been for the slow rise and fall of her breathing. Her face carried none of the fury that had driven her only moments before. It was empty. Not peaceful, not calm, but hollow in the peculiar way one becomes when a memory reaches too deeply into the soul to permit any outward emotion. Her lone visible eye remained fixed upon Caim without blinking, while beneath her skin faint veins of violet crystal began to bloom. They emerged delicately at first, threading across her neck and collarbone like frost creeping over winter glass before slowly thickening into jagged formations that caught the pale light of Akasha. Opposite her, the sword embedded through Caim's chest had already begun losing its victory. White blood continued to seep around the wound, yet flesh advanced steadily along the blade, pushing it outward with patient inevitability. It resembled skin rejecting a splinter more than a grievous injury, the ancient body quietly reminding everyone present that it had endured catastrophes far greater.

The illusion finally surrendered. The shattered heavens, the burning forests, the impossible oceans, and the screaming horizon dissolved into drifting fragments of light before disappearing entirely. In their place remained Akasha in its truest state—an endless expanse of pale possibility where direction, distance, and horizon held little meaning. There were no mountains waiting to be climbed, no stars suspended overhead, no earth beneath their feet save for what thought itself permitted. Caim's explanation settled gently into that silence. Presence was not merely energy; it conversed with existence. Space listened. Reality responded. Given sufficient understanding, one's Presence did not create worlds—it persuaded the existing one to momentarily remember a different shape. The revelation washed over Inariel and Aurelius like cool rain after a lifetime beneath a relentless sun. Wonder displaced caution. The old sage no longer resembled an adversary standing between them and their destination. He had quietly resumed the role he must once have held countless ages ago: a guardian of forgotten knowledge, a teacher preserving truths that history had mistaken for myth. To them, Caim had ceased being an obstacle. He had become an ancestor speaking across eternity.

Yet Akasha refused to become uniform.

Everywhere around Caim, Inariel, and Aurelius stretched an immeasurable emptiness filled with limitless potential, tranquil and untouched, awaiting only the thoughts of those who inhabited it. Around Nagase, however, the world rebelled. Shattered trunks floated in broken circles around her, each fragment twisting through impossible angles before abruptly straightening again. Pieces of ground folded over themselves without ever meeting. Light entering the space around her emerged bent, bruised into shades of crimson and violet that should not have existed. Distance refused consistency; objects appeared farther away one moment, impossibly close the next. Even silence became distorted, arriving in uneven waves that caused every breath near her to sound delayed. It was as though reality itself had developed bruises, and every law governing nature winced whenever it drew too near the Child of Wrath. Caim watched the phenomenon with profound sadness before releasing a weary sigh that seemed to carry the weight of civilizations long forgotten.

"Akasha possesses no organic matter," he said quietly. "Nothing here grows. Nothing dies. This place has no identity of its own." His eyes remained upon Nagase as another fragment of fractured space spiraled around her shoulder. "It borrows one from those who stand within it. Every perspective contributes. Every soul leaves an impression. In that way, Akasha is not a world." His gaze softened. "It is a reflection."

Aurelius instinctively turned toward Nagase, only to recoil before his eyes fully settled upon her. It was not fear that forced him back but sensation. Emotion rolled from her in suffocating waves, dense enough to possess texture. Rage bent the empty expanse around her into impossible geometry, while grief hid beneath it like a current beneath black water. Every crystal pushing through her skin seemed to anchor those emotions more deeply into the fabric of Akasha, causing the distortion surrounding her to spread with agonizing patience. Caim noticed Aurelius' hesitation immediately. "She cannot let go," he murmured. "Or perhaps..." His expression darkened. "...whatever has claimed her refuses to let her go." His voice became distant, recalling another lifetime. "A man far wiser than I once taught me that those unwilling to face their own darkness inevitably become its reflection. What we deny within ourselves, we cast upon the world around us until we no longer remember the difference." He regarded Nagase with unmistakable pity. "Right now... she is making a choice. I only pray it is not one she will regret."

Aurelius scarcely heard the final words. His thoughts had caught upon something far stranger. Caim had spoken Nagase's name with complete certainty despite no one ever offering it. There had been no telepathy, no introduction, no opportunity to learn it through ordinary means. The realization had only just begun to form before Nagase answered in his place.

"To kill you."

The words fell into Akasha with startling clarity.

No one answered immediately.

Inariel closed his eyes.

Aurelius lowered his head.

Even Caim's shoulders seemed to sink ever so slightly beneath an invisible burden.

It was not outrage they felt.

Only disappointment.

"Nagase..." Aurelius' voice barely rose above a whisper. "Caim isn't our enemy. He is the voice our ancestors lost. He isn't even... alive in the way we understand life."

She offered no response.

Instead, the violet crystal accelerated.

It spread across her shoulders, wrapped around her ribs, crawled over her arms, and climbed her throat in tightening layers until only a single crimson eye remained unobscured beneath the translucent mineral. The crystal embraced her body like ceremonial armor forged from mourning itself, each new layer pressing tighter against her flesh before releasing long hissing breaths of pale vapor through the narrowing seams.

"Then..."

Steam escaped between the crystalline plates.

"...I'll erase him."

Inariel laughed.

It was brief.

Instinctive.

The absurdity of the statement escaped him before reason could intervene.

For the first time in what felt like hours, Aurelius almost smiled.

Then he looked toward Caim.

The laughter died immediately.

There was no amusement within the ancient sage's eyes.

Only sorrow.

Profound, immeasurable sorrow.

"We cannot erase people—"

Inariel stopped speaking.

Something touched him.

Not physically.

Emotionally.

Aurelius felt it the same instant Caim did.

The crystal consumed Nagase entirely.

Only one eye remained visible.

Then even that disappeared beneath violet light.

Across the endless sky of Akasha, reality flickered.

Not an illusion.

A memory.

For the briefest heartbeat they witnessed a woman fashioned from crystal extending her hand toward a much younger Nagase. Words they could not hear passed between them, yet understanding arrived all the same. Herald. Horseman. Kill Zeik.

The vision vanished as quickly as it had come.

"...Nagase."

Aurelius stepped forward despite himself.

"What are you doing?"

She never moved.

The crystal continued compressing around her body until it seemed less like armor and more like a cocoon preparing to birth something altogether different. Thin jets of steam hissed rhythmically from every seam, as though immense pressure were building beneath the crystalline shell.

"We came here seeking answers," Aurelius pleaded. "A way to end this war. We didn't come here to murder our own past."

"Don't."

Caim's voice halted him.

"Dont...ignore what you feel
."

He slowly rose to his feet, the sword finally slipping free from his healed chest before dissolving into particles of fading light.

"As she stands now... she would burn this entire world before allowing herself a single honest reflection. She would end the balance of time. She would tear apart space itself." His eyes never left the crystalline figure before him. "Anything... so long as she never has to witness what she has become."

The words settled heavily over Akasha.

Without speaking, Inariel and Aurelius instinctively shifted apart, not to surround Nagase but to prepare for whatever emerged from within the crystal. Neither was certain she still recognized friendship. Throughout the battle she had spoken to them less as companions and more as pieces upon a board, barking commands while disregarding every voice but her own.

Before either could move another step, Caim raised a single hand.

"No..."

There was no hesitation in his voice.

Only resolve.

"I will answer her wrath."

Behind Caim, the twin dragons remained untouched by the growing hostility, their immense forms suspended above the old sage like guardians that had long ago accepted war as merely another season of existence. One lowered its great head toward Inariel, ancient golden eyes studying him with quiet curiosity, while its beloved regarded Aurelius with equal fascination, as though each sensed a familiar ember hidden within one half of the newly harmonized soul. Though sharing a single body, they were not siblings born together but lovers who had long since surrendered the notion of separate lives. Among dragonkind there existed no spoken vows nor sacred ceremony; when two dragons allowed their flames to become one, their souls followed, their bodies yielding to that union until individuality itself became an act of devotion. Even now, with conflict poised upon the edge of rebirth, they prepared not through displays of dominance but through affection. Their impossibly long necks slowly coiled around one another, scales gliding together with practiced tenderness as each brushed its snout against the other's in silent reassurance. Their six wings settled closer around Caim, not as a fortress born from fear but as the gentle embrace of two hearts promising that neither would face the coming storm alone. Behind them, Caim's flowing silken robes drifted through Akasha without wind to command them, weaving graceful arcs through the empty expanse like living calligraphy, each ribbon tracing forgotten runes across the pale void before dissolving back into elegant motion. Everything surrounding the old sage spoke of patience, harmony, and a peace so ancient that even battle could not disturb it.

Nagase stood at the opposite end of that silence, and the contrast was almost unbearable. The crystal encasing her body had become darker, its violet depths swallowing what little light reached them, while her Presence no longer merely distorted Akasha—it oppressed it. Space around her no longer bent gracefully but convulsed. The empty expanse bubbled as though existence itself had been plunged into boiling tar, translucent blisters swelling across reality before rupturing into hissing fractures that stitched themselves together only to split apart once more. The air carried an odor that had no rightful place within Akasha, something rancid and ancient, the unmistakable scent of intention left to rot until it became indistinguishable from hatred itself. Every heartbeat thickened that corruption, and with each pulse the suffocating pressure surrounding her expanded farther, swallowing possibility and replacing it with violent certainty. It was unmistakable. Nagase had begun to understand Presence—not as Caim embodied it, nor as the old world had intended, but through a path twisted by wrath, trauma, and omens mistaken for destiny. Caim watched the transformation without moving. For the first time since their meeting, his expression hardened not with disapproval but with genuine concern. It was not fear of defeat. It was the quiet recognition that the road before her still descended, that what stood before him was not the end of her fall but merely another step toward something far more catastrophic. His weathered hand slowly lifted, and beneath his feet a single ancient rune blossomed into existence, its geometry so impossibly intricate that even Akasha seemed to hesitate before allowing it to fully manifest. The dragons ceased their gentle dance. The flowing silks became still. Every sound dissolved into expectant silence as Caim's eyes settled upon the Herald of Wrath, and at last he spoke a single word, heavy with the authority of an age that had long since passed.

"Boundless..."

[Inariel Myotis]

The pale void of Akasha stretched into infinity, a canvas of limitless potential that rippled like quiet water under the collective weight of their minds. Here, reality did not assert itself; it waited to be persuaded. For Inariel and Aurelius, the environment was a soft, resonant hum, but beside them, the twin gold dragons draped their curiosity around the Myotis pair with the heavy, whimsical playfulness of giant kittens.

Though both draconic entities were terrifyingly magnificent, the lingering memory of their Living Flames—which had illuminated the void only moments before—kept the Myotis twins highly alert. Throughout the history of Vescrutia, tales of these legendary beasts littered ancient texts in grand, mythic regalia. Yet, while Inariel had never shared physical space with one, Aurelius’s eyes shone with a borderline fanatical glee. He stared at the golden scales, a profound sense of recognition teasing the edges of his mind. It was a frustrating sensation, like a word on the tip of the tongue or a dream evaporating upon waking. Aurelius felt, with absolute certainty, that he shared a deep, primordial connection to these Golden Dragons, though the truth remained cocooned in the deep recesses of his forgotten memories.

The light atmosphere shattered when Nagase spoke of erasing Caim.

A brief, dark chuckle escaped Inariel's throat, assuming it to be a dramatic outburst. But the laugh died instantly when he looked at her. While the ambient Akasha conformed smoothly to the gentle respiration of his and Aurelius’s auras, Nagase’s energy refused to settle. It thrashed. It wept.

What wafted from her soul was no mere immature embarrassment or petulant anger. It was a black, suffocating weight—a gravity so dense that had Inariel not been intimately acquainted with the extremes of emotional torment, it would have crushed him like a falling mountain.

Before their eyes, dark violet crystals began to pierce through her skin, wrapping around her limbs, using her flesh as a jagged scaffold. This was no simple spell; it was the physical crystallization of her raw, unadulterated Will. It was Wrath, pure and weeping, hardening into armor.

"Nagase!" Inariel called out, his voice echoing flatly in the pale void.

But she was deaf to him. Inside her mind, the violent crystallization triggered a fractured memory. A vision of a crystalline woman, cold and radiant, burned into her consciousness, delivering a singular, absolute directive: “Herald. Horseman. Kill Zeik.” Yet for some reason, glimpses of this memory slipped into Inari's consciousness. Perhaps it was because of thier bond...but something about this felt familiar.

"Zeik...this storm...it mirrors his. Something is amidst...."

Did Nagase share the same affliction as Zeik, and if so, if hers was triggering, could it mean that Zeik too was suffering? If so, then this situation was far more worrisome than the other coudl imagine. Whilst Caim could hold his own against her here, Inari could not think of a single being alive that could wrangle in Zeik himself should he be suffering from his curse. As the corruption of her wrath spilled into the Akasha like a spreading blight, Inariel and Aurelius instinctively shifted their stances. They prepared to leap forward, to restrain her, to force her back to sanity if they must.

But a figure barred their path.

Caim stood between them and the erupting girl. The gruesome wound in the sage's chest began to knit together, sealing itself as if rewriting its own history.

"Do not ignore what you feel," Caim said, his voice carrying the deep resonance of a bell. "Lean into it."

The words floored Inariel. Why? Why would the ancient sage encourage her to dive headfirst into this abyss of hatred and bloodthirst?

But then, Inariel’s mind slid backward, slipping into the dark corridors of his own Animus. He remembered Moonscar. He remembered the phantom of his own guilt, the manifestation of his horrific tirades of carnage and blood. It had been an agonizing, terrifying thing to face. Yet, it was only by staring directly into that monster, by embracing the horror of his own past, that he had made peace with his heart. Had he not leaned directly into that agonizing Root, he would have never discovered the Primordial Red. He would have never known Amrit, nor uncovered the truth of his identity and the curse laid upon him.

This was Nagase’s crucible. It was a path she had to walk entirely alone.

Aurelius, however, was trembling. Lacking a physical body, his spiritual form vibrated with a raw, empathetic agony. He could feel the sheer, visceral pain radiating from Nagase—not just hatred, but a profound, fractured grief. He took a step forward, desperate to save her.

Inariel reached out, his hand clamping firmly onto Aurelius’s forearm.

"Aurelius... there is..." Inariel began, but Aurelius pulled against the grip, his eyes wide with panic.

"We cannot leave her here like this, Inariel! Look at her!" Aurelius cried.

Inariel did not answer immediately. He looked at Aurelius. Really looked at him.

In the quiet of Akasha, something fundamental had shifted between them. Before their journey into this realm, Inariel had viewed Aurelius primarily as a tool—an invaluable, deeply beloved tool, yes, but a tool nonetheless. But now, after witnessing the resilience of his spirit, after surviving the crucible of Caim’s soul-binding spell, Inariel saw him clearly. Aurelius was his own entity, a magnificent soul standing alongside him, not behind him.

Slowly, Inariel shook his head. "There is nothing more for us to do here," he said softly.

"We have what we came for. Now, I must fulfill my duty as Crown."

"But—"

"We are not abandoning her," Inariel interrupted gently, his voice carrying a warmth that disarmed Aurelius's rising panic.

"Let us trust in Caim. He has yet to steer us wrong."

Aurelius’s shoulders slumped slightly, his gaze lingering on the churning storm of purple crystals and the serene, waiting sage. Before those doubts could take root again, Inariel reached out, his fingers gently catching Aurelius's chin, turning his face so their eyes met.

"Besides... call me a fool," Inariel said, a faint, genuine smile touching his lips.

"But she is one of the very few beings who have ever managed to surprise me. Nana will find her way."

Aurelius’s resistance melted. He nodded, a quiet admiration shining in his eyes. Raising his hands, he began to channel his power, his palms glowing with a brilliant, swirling gold energy that tore open a rift in the pale fabric of Akasha—a portal leading back to the physical world.

Inariel’s hand, though still lacking its true physical form in this space, condensed. He drew upon his own essence, forging a crystal of pure, condensed blood. It was a vessel designed to safely house Aurelius’s wayward, disembodied soul, keeping them anchored together in the material realm.

With the portal humming behind them, they turned to look at Caim one last time.

Beneath Caim's feet, an immense, intricate rune of light began to bloom, spreading across the floor of the void like a golden web. The twin dragons coiled around him, their whimsy replaced by a terrifying, primordial majesty. The sage drew a breath, his presence expanding until it seemed to encompass the entire realm.

"Boundless..." Caim murmured, the word carrying the weight of a thousand epochs.

"We leave our friend to you," Inariel whispered into the wind.

Holding the blood-crystal containing Aurelius's essence close to his chest, Inariel stepped backward into the golden rift alongside his partner. The portal collapsed behind them, swallowing the blinding light of Akasha.

They departed with heavy hearts; the image of Nagase's crystalline torment burned into their minds. Yet, beneath the worry, a small, stubborn seed of optimism had been planted. Only Nagase could decide if she would let her wrath consume her, or if she would find the strength to let her true self bloom.