CHAPTER 36: THE MAN I WAS...

Short-cropped white hair, golden irises that glowed like molten ore, deep-brown skin corded with muscle and marred by jagged scars that wound across his arms... the kind left by battles too brutal to heal cleanly.

The scars twisted and flexed as his grip tightened, his sword-hand flicking the last clinging strands of sludge aside with a contemptuous snap.

Face was youthful but stern, lips pressed into a hard frown... but the expression was familiar.

So achingly familiar.

Keiser’s breath caught.

It was the same face he had seen staring back at him in fleeting reflections... on broken steel, on rippling water, in dreams that haunted more than comforted.

But it wasn’t the same.

The man’s eyes weren’t weighed down by time. His body carried no deep gouges across his chest, no void punched straight through his heart, no weathered years carved into his features.

This was him... without the scars. Without the gaping absence.

Younger. Whole. Alive.

And staring at him like an unwelcome shadow.

Suddenly, Keiser’s ears caught the sound of movement... boots slapping against dirt, the staggered rhythm of people arriving from the same direction as the white-haired man.

Their footsteps weren’t measured like soldiers in formation, they were uneven, halting, as if each man was trying to slow down and take in the horror of what they had just run through.

Snatches of voices followed, raw with shock.

"...gods, the road... did you see those carcasses?"

"...Burnt to nothing. Ash scattered like it rained fire."

"...The stench... ugh, it’s still on my throat."

"...That sludge... we stepped on it, didn’t we? Don’t let it touch you!"

"...Those trees... snapped like tinder. And the bodies---are those eyes?"

They spilled out into the clearing, and the reality before them made several stumble back, gagging or swearing outright.

The writhing half-body of the Gula twitched across the ground, trying to stitch itself back together, its shrieks and spasms clawing at the air.

"Sir Keiser... what is happening?!" one voice broke through, higher, breathless. "Why did you hurry to the village... woah!"

Another soldier cursed loudly, fumbling to steady his blade. "Shit, that’s a Gula!"

Disbelief rippled through them like wildfire.

"How the hell is a Gula here?!"

"Impossible! They don’t form this far in!"

"A surge?!" someone guessed, horror in his tone.

"That explains it... we passed miles of ashes on the way!"

"No way. No way! A surge in Hinnom?!"

The words overlapped, clashing, panicked.

Their voices seemed to pound against Keiser’s already-throbbing head, each one dragging him closer to the edge of breaking focus. Then, sharper, cutting through the noise...

"Sir Keiser?"

The question hung in the air, heavy, demanding, as if they expected him to already have an answer.

But the white-haired man didn’t flinch at their shouting or panic.

He merely raised a gloved finger to his ear, rubbing idly as though the noise was more annoying than the monstrosity writhing before them. With a grunt of irritation, he ground his boot against the black sludge sticking to it and kicked the foul muck aside.

"How would I know?" he snapped, voice cutting clean through the babble.

"Just get to cutting that blot in nature. Find the damn core. Shit. After months of dealing with this, and you worthless lot still don’t know how to move before running your mouths?"

The scorn was like a whip, it snapped them to motion.

The brigade that had spilled into the clearing---men Keiser remembered faintly, faces that blurred with memory and exhaustion... suddenly straightened as one.

The hesitation, the fear in their voices, burned away in an instant.

No one complained.

No one argued.

Not a single protest rose.

Determination hardened their expressions as they drew steel and charged toward the writhing mass, blades flashing in arcs of desperate precision.

Keiser, slumped and raw from pain, could only watch.

It was surreal... dizzying... like he was watching through a glass, like he wasn’t truly there at all but a spectator on the sidelines. His head pounded, body screaming, but his gaze couldn’t pull away from how seamlessly they moved once given a command.

He flinched at the sudden tug on his shoulder.

Keiser’s eyes snapped upward and met those golden ones.

The man loomed above him, gaze steady, sword hand still dripping dark sludge. For a beat, that frown softened into something like curiosity.

Then---flat, unbothered, even faintly amused...

"Huh? You’re still alive?"

Keiser coughed, the sound ripping through his chest, raw and ugly. He tried to push himself upright, but his limbs betrayed him, trembling, sliding against the blood-slick earth until his knees buckled.

"Y–you... "

The graveled rasp of Muzio’s throat scraped out instead of his true voice.

It grated him... infuriated him. His real body stood right there, solid and unbroken.

The man he had been.

The man he still was.

He had to say it, had to force the words out... about the Gambit, about the last trial,

about the betrayal that left him rotting, about the sword and the promise he had broken. If there was ever a chance, it was now.

But the words withered on his tongue.

A roar split the air... a shriek that clawed through the marrow, echoing from the Gula’s writhing bulk.

Shouts rose from the brigade behind, sharp with urgency.

Kei jerked his head to look... only to be blasted sideways as a gale of force burst past him. His vision blurred with grit and ash.

The other Keiser... Sir Keiser... stood braced against the gust, his sword cleaving a streak through the Gula’s mass. The wind shrieked around the blade’s arc, scattering sludge in ribbons that slapped wetly against the ground.

"Tsk," the man spat, unbothered, like he was scolding a careless squire. "You want me to throw you bastards back to Sheol? How the hell did you let it loose again?"

Before Kei could recover, the man’s free hand shot out and shoved him upright by the chest. The strength behind it was steady, unyielding.

"Kid," Sir Keiser said, as though dismissing him, "step back. Gonna deal with this real quick."

Kei’s body tilted, unbalanced, grasping for anything to anchor him. His fingers closed around the man’s hand... the one gripping the sword.

It was solid, warm, the steel vibrating faintly from its last strike. But it wasn’t the dragonbone hilt. Not yet. Just a plain kingdom-issued blade, the one from before everything fell apart.

"That’s not what I... " His voice cracked. His chest burned.

Then the pain came rushing back, drowning him.

Every muscle screamed.

His veins burned with exhaustion.

Muzio’s body... too fragile, too strained... finally hit its limit.

The world tilted, fading at the edges.