Kido left after that.
She didn't argue and she didn't complain. She didn't even say anything. Her steps were unhurried as she descended the rampart, but he felt her irritation.
Of course, the words he had said to Kido were mostly false. He would've made changes to Changing Star's plans. There would have been several adjustments to her bold actions, but… he felt as though he was about to die. Attending those kinds of meetings with others and his Flaw might just be the last thing he ever did, and entertaining the frequent, volatile emotions of others was much too harmful.
Afterwards, the day passed uneventfully. Nico never departed from his post on the parapet. Indifference began to wash his mind, but then his Specter decided to present itself, wisps of emotion simmering beneath his thoughts.
If only he hadn't somehow killed Gunlaug by squeezing his cracked armor.
If only he hadn't activated his damnable Innate Ability and broken himself beyond recognition.
If only…
Eventually, when the sun finally set, he whispered to the wind:
"Can't escape now…"
His thoughts slowed, and an image of his once pristine Soul Sea appeared in his head. A beautiful, enthralling scene of its dazzling light, waves lapping against the trunk in reverence.
Grimacing, he dove into the elusive mindscape, and once again beheld its now dilapidated state.
More branches had snapped. The restless waters rose into gargantuan waves. Every blanched leaf had been stripped bare, scattered into the dreary depths. Floating in the air in front of the shattered trunk — almost split entirely — was his Specter, its mist shaped into a human form.
Beholding the fractured world, his Specter felt shaken, and those unbridled thoughts transferred to him.
Shaman dissolved into the air.
Nico turned, noticing the misty wraith reforming beside him, its eyes spewing crimson flames.
The voice of the Spell once again roused, whispering:
[Transform Specter into a Spirit?]
The world around him disappeared.
Only then did he realize that his hand had grazed its new form.
His mouth opened, prepared to utter the same response he had given each prior time, but then…
The Specter stole into his mind, forcing ugly thoughts to emerge.
Thoughts like how he had killed Jubei, already having resolved to leave the Bright Castle before that.
Thoughts like how he had loosed an injured Fallen Beast onto the Castle Guard merely to make himself less suspicious, sacrificing several of their lives in the process.
Thoughts like how he had twisted Gemma and Kido's thoughts, fully knowing that they would've been convinced either way in due time, but content to choose the safer, quicker option regardless.
And how, at some point, he lost the ability to be human, to pick the harder choice merely because it was the right one.
When did it happen? Before, even with the same Flaw he had sacrificed himself to fight an Awakened Devil alone. Even with the same Flaw he had brought home food for the Sleepers of the outer settlement every night. Even with the same Flaw he had once considered Seishan's 'covenant'.
Those may not have been entirely out of the kindness of his heart, but they were because he still held the part of his mind that recognized being human wasn't wrong.
Stilling his mind, he narrowed his eyes while staring at the Devil.
"It was you," he said, sighing. "Your real thoughts were those that I viewed in the locket. The images of the trial, my First Nightmare, and the past."
The thought was obvious now. Its mental hex must've been at play, somehow registering the truths of the shaman instead of his own.
'Why?'
He crouched low, grabbing a piece of wet driftwood from the raging waves. It still pulsed faintly in his grasp. His Attribute probed at Shaman's mind at his behest.
Then, he realized it.
When the Specter was reborn, he was too.
'Did I become too inhuman?'
Had he had lost what his Specter had gained?
He didn't know, and he still wasn't going to choose one option or another just because it was considered 'morally' right. There were far more important motives that required consideration.
Yet, the Specter wasn't entirely wrong. It projected each of his choices, showing the thoughts of a would-be part of him.
Wouldn't it be nice to feel good? To make the right decision, not for others, but because he fed off of their emotions? To truly embrace his [Cold Flame], not because it was supposed to make him cold, but because what was heat to a flame? What was emotion to someone that burned off of them?
Fuel.
A flame didn't need its own heat — it was a product. But, it did need firewood, and no small amount of it.
He didn't need his own emotions. His logical thoughts were what shaped him, and no amount of other people's grief should change that.
'But it had…'
Back in the slums, he had almost completely lost himself drowning in an inescapable tide of other people's virulent feelings.
Still, it seemed quite… foolish to have isolated himself now. If all it was that perturbed him was negative thought, then he simply had to make it positive, or grow strong enough to endure.
Only now that he was on his last leg did the thought seem to register, and that wasn't to say he regretted his actions. He couldn't. There had been better ways to go about them, but they were all deviations that could've taken more time or lives.
Perhaps he could have a new goal, then. Kido believed he valued nothing besides survival. He told her as much himself. But, as all things do, his opinion has changed, and her conversation seemed to have been a catalyst for that.
Rationally, a far more pleasant goal would be to create a place where even someone emotionless could find something to desire — even through others if need be.
He would have to construct a paradise.
There was no room for monsters in paradise…
Nico took a breath, moving his body to a secure position on the wall's walkway.
After denying its offer for so long, he was on his last leg. The Spell, though, ever patient, had waited for him.
There would be nothing to wait for if he didn't accept this.
Whatever transformation the Spell was about to do, it would either fix him, break him, or leave him just the same, and after having gone so far, he preferred to make his own choice rather than waiting for it to come to him.
"Yes."
The words drowned in the furious waves of his Soul Sea, but they didn't go unnoticed.
Before everything turned to black, Nico felt a single thought enter his mind. Only, it wasn't his own, and there was no voice to speak it. Instead, it was a mix of assertions and feelings that all melded together.
It felt strangely like… gratitude.
***
…Sometime later, the raging waves had finally stilled, the snapped branches had regrown, and the splintered trunk had mended. Fresh, pure white leaves danced in a gentle breeze. Roots pulsed brightly under the water.
Far in the distance, plunging from the sky like beacons of brilliant light were four new cores. Displaced water seethed and foamed, shooting in jets as they broke the surface and sank deep below. So deep, in fact, they settled like a cluster of distant stars, intertwining into the vast tapestry of roots that lay below.
The Spell spoke, its pleasant voice unheard by the intended recipient:
[You have created a Spirit Devil, Barrow Wraith Shaman.]