「I'm cold… no… it's just the heat that's gone…? No… I can't feel my hands anymore… I can't feel my body. Am I dead!?」
Mike drifted in the void… in the darkness… there was simply nothing left around him. This nothingness, he had strangely already known it.
Mike — "No… this feeling… not having to live…"
Voice ? — "Mike!"
Mike — "You don't even give me time… He beat me… ahah… I sank… into that burning sea…"
Voice ? — "So what? You're going to give up now?"
Mike — "I don't want to fight… What's the point?"
Voice ? — "You're really asking me that? Do you want my answer?"
Mike — "No, it's useless… I just want to stay here… Anyway, I can't do anything against Gekidō…"
Silence.
Not hesitation, but rather as if the Voice was observing something… elsewhere.
Voice ? — "You really resemble him… but she's starting to get sleepy… she won't hold much longer…"
Mike — "Who are you talking about? There's no one here…"
The void vibrated. Light, almost fragile, like a tremor coming from far away.
Mike flinched.
Mike — "What was that?"
A second tremor. This time accompanied by a breath, a muffled sound. A respiration.
The Voice murmured, low.
Voice ? — "If you could see what's happening over there…"
The nothingness split open with a violet glow. At first diffuse, like a thread of light. Then a silhouette formed, walking toward him slowly.
Violet hair floated around her face. Her eyes, gentle but ringed with shadows, shone like two tired stars in the darkness.
??? — "Mike…"
Her voice was calm, steady, but slow, exhausted. A voice he had rarely heard…
Mike — "Who… who are you?"
She crouched in front of him, smiling. A slow, sad, tender smile.
??? — "You used to call me Rhéa when you were little… but… that's not the point…"
She paused before continuing.
Rhéa — "You're not dead. Not as long as I'm here. I… caught you."
She placed her hand on his chest, as if following a rhythm that didn't exist in this void.
Mike — "Rhéa? Caught me?"
She nodded, eyes half-closed with fatigue.
Rhéa — "When your body… burned, you detached. You were going very far away. I pulled you back. But…"
She sat down, wiping one eye with the back of her hand like someone fighting sleep.
Rhéa — "It's… very tiring. Using will. Gathering the burning bodies around to reconstruct our body. Holding you here as well as all the others… Doing all that at the same time… I'm… sleepy."
Her chin almost dropped against her chest.
She straightened up, out of habit more than strength.
Rhéa — "I can keep you alive for a while. But I can't stay awake much longer. I'm exhausted, Mike. So… come back. While I'm still here."
She extended her hand warmly.
Rhéa — "Come back to the controls… just so I can sleep a little. I'm so… tired."
That sentence, simple, human. Like the whisper of an older sister who can't take it anymore but keeps going anyway for him.
Mike's hand rose — against his will — toward hers.
Rhéa — "I'll leave you one last help… with my remaining will…"
The darkness shattered like glass struck from the inside.
Pain surged. Heat as well. The weight of his body. The world snapped back into shape.
Mike opened his eyes. A short breath. A dull impact.
His mouth closed on a sentence he hadn't spoken.
A spray of red particles suspended in the air.
In front of him, Gekidō's head was already tipping over, detached from the rest of his body.
The world seemed to slow down around it.
「What the…? Is that her help?」
Mike's fingers trembled. His breath caught.
He felt one last whisper slide into his mind… gentle but exhausted.
「Rhéa — "Welcome back… take… over… I've found my table… I… sleep…"」
Her voice faded slowly like a star slipping past the horizon.
Mike — "Good night…"
Mike staggered… His body obeyed him again, but with a strange slight delay.
As if he were returning from a long sleep…
His right hand was covered in a heat that wasn't his own. That hand which had decapitated Gekidō. That hand which hurt terribly.
Gekidō's torso collapsed.
The head bounced once on the ground, then rolled gently, its expression frozen in a disturbing mix of surprise and rage.
Mike stepped back, his breath hitching.
Mike — "Is that… me? No… it's you… who did that, Rhéa?"
No answer. Her presence had vanished. Asleep, drained. Extinguished somewhere deep within his mind.
「She's really sleeping…」
He was alone. Truly alone, this time.
And yet, it was his fingers… his body… that had ended the fight.
Gekidō's head finished rolling against a wall, coming to a stop…
The eyes, even separated from the body, still seemed to burn with a remnant of will.
Mike swallowed hard, his heart pounding too fast in his chest.
He stood there, motionless, facing the corpse of his own alter.
His gaze alternated between his hand and the head on the ground, when a heavy, deep sound stirred above him. A rustle. A breath.
Schrr
「What is that noise?」
Mike looked up.
The sea of fire suspended from the ceiling began to ripple.
The silhouettes, those "burning bodies" Gekidō had created, all vibrated at once. A shiver of embers ran through the mass, lighting the floor with a faint glow.
Mike — "What?"
One burning body broke loose. Then another. Then ten. Then an uncountable number. Falling to the ground.
Misshapen for some… intact for others…
A sharp, almost sweet smell escaped from their incandescent carcasses.
Voice ? — "Mike! Grab your knife and get away! Quickly!"
「My knife? Where is it? And my bag? Did it stay upstairs?」
Mike got back up quickly.
Voice ? — "Look next to Gekidō's remains. It should be there!"
Indeed, his knife was still in Gekidō's inert hand, lying on the ground…
Mike hurried to retrieve it.
Mike — "Ow— Got it!"
He managed to get his knife back by forcing the burning hand a bit.
But there wasn't enough time. The bodies had already hit the ground like blocks of embers. With a dull cry, they stood back up. All of them.
Their silhouettes flickered like flames that refused to die.
「They were alive?」
One of them turned its head toward Gekidō's corpse. Then it took a few hesitant steps… and knelt before the severed head.
Mike stepped back, holding his breath.
The burning body extended its fingers, or what remained of them, and grasped Gekidō's smoking head like a treasure.
A red light pulsed within it, faint… but alive.
A second body approached, then a third, and soon about ten surrounded what remained of Gekidō.
Mike — "What are they doing?"
Something happened within that circle of silhouettes.
Their fire, previously chaotic, began to converge, as if the flames recognized one another.
Gekidō's head was lifted at the center of the circle.
An atrocious heat surged, forcing Mike to step back again.
「They want to burn me again?」
The burning bodies began to collapse voluntarily into themselves…
And their matter, everything that composed them, was drawn toward the head.
The silhouettes liquefied into a red-orange flow, like living lava, and fused with that already-dead head.
The head vibrated.
The cracks in the skull closed one by one.
Gekidō's eyes reignited with a dull red glow.
The flow continued.
Muscles reformed around the bone, first shapeless, then tightening, aligning, becoming perfectly coherent.
But the molten matter changed in nature.
The red surface cooled brutally, tearing into plates.
Beneath those plates appeared… skin.
Human skin, pale, almost polished by the heat escaping from it.
The remaining embers rose toward his skull and gathered into strands.
The strands took on a vivid, chaotic red color, as if flames had frozen into his hair.
Then other scraps of matter detached from the flow.
They flattened, unfolded, stretched around him: fabric.
A long coat, blackened in places, crisscrossed with red fissures pulsing to the rhythm of a new heart.
Bandages wrapped themselves around his arms and legs, like white snakes seeking their place.
And finally, claws formed at the tips of his fingers — long, dark, sharp, shaped from the remains of solidified embers.
He straightened up.
A whole body, alive.
A perfectly reformed Gekidō… in the version he liked the most.
Mike felt his heart tighten.
Mike — "No… no, impossible…"
And yet, Gekidō stood there, upright, complete, almost majestic.
As if death had only been a parenthesis.
As if his rage had found a new container.
Gekidō — "Too… late… You thought you were the only one who could come back?"
He looked sadly at his hand as if checking that all of this was real.
He turned his head toward the hundred remaining bodies.
Gekidō — "But I don't feel like fighting anymore…"
Mike — "What… You don't want to—"
Gekidō turned back to look at Mike.
Gekidō — "In the end… seeing her in action… I realized something… I'm not strong enough. But why, with her strength, doesn't she dominate the weak…"
Mike — "Her? You mean Rhéa?"
Gekidō — "Rhéa… So that was her name… Yes. A name that suits her so well. I'd like to ask her whether the strong exist to protect the weak."
Mike — "The strong? The weak? I don't know…"
Gekidō — "Don't worry, the question isn't for you."
Mike — "She's sleeping… She was very tired…"
Gekidō — "Then I'll wait for her to wake up."
Gekidō walked slowly toward Mike. As if he lost strength with every step.
Gekidō — "You and I… we're the same thing seeking two different paths. And you…"
He took one last step forward. Mike stepped back reflexively.
Smiling, Gekidō removed his coat and held it out toward Mike.
Gekidō — "You can go much further than this. Much further than me. So here, take it, it will heal you completely."
Mike — "Really?"
He put the coat on hesitantly. His body warmed with a gentle heat. His pains eased before disappearing one by one.
That coat continued to pulse like a heart before going still.
Mike — "It… it really healed me… Thank you, Gekidō!"
Mike raised his head but an inert body now stood before him. Disappearing. Into simple embers…
Mike felt water run down his cheek.
A tear. His.
Mike — "Huh? Gekidō?"
He raised his hand toward what remained, in a motion as if trying to grasp something already gone.
Mike hadn't realized it, but Gekidō had already begun to disintegrate little by little after he started speaking to him.
Mike wavered slightly before catching himself, hands on the ground.
The burning bodies, however, were still present.
A sound — a voice — rose from among them.
Burning body — "This sucks, sucks, sucks. That's not what we were told."
One of them stood out from the others, tapping its foot intensely. Bending its body in all directions.
Burning body — "Now that we're here, the building is going to react… it's going to make things even harder for us… us, the Warai-gami."
A surprised murmur echoed in Mike's head.
「Gekidō — "Warai-gami? Never heard of them. Who are they?"」
「Voice ? — "I don't know, but I'm glad you're back."」
「Gekidō — "Tch. Glad?"」
Mike — "Gekidō? You're still here?"
Warai-gami — "You're ignoring me too? Just so you know, I'm alone. The others are just empty shells."
「Gekidō — "Hmm? Oh really?! I felt I'd reached my limit… I felt I was going to disappear so I gave you what I cared about most. I think in the end, even if I had killed you, I wouldn't have gone much further… After all, an alter in another body is kind of weird, right?"」
Warai-gami — "I'm talking to you! Are you listening?"
The body was already right in front of Mike, who jumped back abruptly, knife in hand.
Then the ground rumbled.
Warai-gami — "Well, there you go!"
The ground completely gave way beneath his feet.
Mike fell, accompanied by dozens of incandescent silhouettes. A rain of living embers.
He struck a floor colder than all the previous ones.
The impact almost knocked the breath out of him.
The floor was… different.
Not a field of flames. Not a corridor. Not a room.
A circle.
No… not just one circle, but three.
「Gekidō — "I'll let you fight… You really need it."」
「Voice ? — "Hey, don't steal my advisor role!"」
Mike — "Hey, you're not starting again!"
「Gekidō — "Mike… you know you can talk in your head… We can hear you!"」
「Mike — "What, wait? Does that mean the Voice has been hearing me from the beginning?!"」
「Voice ? — "Yes, exactly! Uh, I have no idea what you're talking about."」
Mike, slightly disoriented, looked at the ground in surprise.
「Mike — "Look at that!"」
He pointed at it.
A number was displayed beneath his feet… 100.
Warai-gami — "And there we go, now I'll have to do the job myself. Just when I'd finally found a body?!"
Thus was the arrival on floor 94.