How badly did I want this to be a lie? How desperately did I hope it was all just a spiteful dream?
I laughed bitterly, laying Jennifer's broken body down with trembling hands.
I tore off my tattered cape and wrapped it around her shoulders, covering her completely like a burial shroud.
When I looked up, I saw that monster laughing, tears of joy streaking her face. I wanted it so much… I needed it, more than anything.
Her death. Her end. I desired it with every breath. But I couldn't do it.
No matter how much I yearned, no matter how deep the hatred ran, it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
My sword slipped from my hand and clattered against the stone. I dropped to my knees.
Satire stepped forward slowly, sighing with disappointment. "How pitiful. I thought losing her might help you grow. But it seems you've only regressed."
My hair lengthened, strands darkening with streaks of pitch-black as something awakened inside me.
"Oh?" Satire blinked, intrigued. "No way… is this...?"
I grabbed my sword again and rose to my feet, pressing the blade against her neck. "I no longer have a reason to hold back."
Her grin stretched with unhinged delight. "Oh my! Is this the true power of Nicole Anstalionah?!"
There was no sound. No movement. No time to perceive what occurred. And yet… it happened.
The swing came and went in the same instant, and Satire's armor exploded off her body like glass under pressure.
She was launched into the moon, and before the dust could settle, I was already there, standing over her limp form.
Shards of black metal drifted silently in the void. Blood pooled at my feet like a crimson tide. I dismissed it with a glance.
She coughed and spat, wiping her mouth as she struggled to rise. "That was… unexpected."
I struck again. She blocked, barely, but the impact still sent her skidding across the lunar surface.
Dozens of wind-forged lances warped space itself as they spiraled toward her.
She weaved through them with unnatural grace, but my blade still found her throat, piercing it clean.
I tore through her neck, nearly severing her head. She shoved it back into place, grinning even as I kicked her away.
I leapt into space and raised my hand. "True Ancestral Spear of the Gale God."
A spear formed, vast, radiant, impossibly adorned with white jewels and roaring with winds darker than night and brighter than day.
It tore through the fabric of everything, obeying no direction, no law, not even reality itself. The spear struck instantly.,
At that moment… I envied her. So deeply, so irrationally, I envied her with a madness I couldn't comprehend.
The moon shattered. She spiraled through the void, her body nearly vaporized. She regenerated, just barely fast enough to block my next blow.
Then, suddenly, pain. Wounds erupted across my body before I could think, before I could react.
I soared away, blood pouring from my throat as her blade nearly caught my neck. I twisted, ducked, spun, caught her leg, and hurled her toward the sun.
Before she could phase, before she could chant a spell, I raised my palm. "True Gale Palm!"
The force that followed bent the sun, dimmed its fire, and pushed it back against its own will.
She collided with its heart, and when the flames finally snapped back into place, her charred body tumbled out. And yet she rose again. Whole.
"As fun as this has been, Nicole…" she chuckled, brushing soot from her cheek, "I think it's time I stopped being your punching bag."
Her blade blurred. I dodged left. Right. Flew back and evaded again until one cut found me, slicing clean across my arm. It didn't heal.
I cursed and fled the galaxy entirely, but she was right behind me, her sword digging into my foot. I grit my teeth, bit my tongue, and countered.
I grabbed her by the hair and flung her back toward the planet. Wind surged behind her, endless and vengeful, as I followed her descent.
We breached the atmosphere. I slammed her down and stomped, again and again, legs wrapped in wild, untamed mana. The earth quaked.
In that split moment, a hand gripped my throat. Satire tilted her head.
A white halo flickered above her crown, her armor morphing into something divine.
"Stop pretending you're a goddess," I screamed.
She hurled me skyward and summoned a blade of sacred light. It pierced through me, then her heel crushed my spine. I spun, bleeding, blocking radiant rays with my sword.
I weaved through her strikes, countered with wind, but she was already behind me.
She grabbed me by the waist and slammed me into the ground. I rolled, swept her legs, rose, and then… My veins burst. My muscles tore.
She stood over me, pity in her eyes. "And so she falls," she said. "It seems you've lost your strength."
I coughed, blood now dark and sluggish.
On my knees, blade trembling in my grip, I clung to life, not for revenge, not for pride. But because I couldn't let her have this victory.
Because the jealousy still burned in my bones, and I still didn't know why.
Satire exhaled softly. "Do you see now? This was necessary. For the Holy Land. For salvation."
I looked up, trembling. "Necessary?" My voice cracked. My breath shook. "You call this necessary? You kill, destroy, ruin people, and hide behind the Holy Land?"
"It is God's will," she said like scripture, calm and absolute. "What we do, we do for the world to be reborn. Pain is a price."
I stood, barely. My eyes blazed. "Then your god is broken. If this is what he asks, I want no part of it."
Her face stiffened. "Then you're a fool. A blind child groping in darkness. Do you truly believe rejecting faith will protect you from truth?"
I said nothing at first. The pain pulsed through every inch of my body, yet I couldn't feel it anymore.
I was laughing, not from madness, not from victory, but from understanding. For the first time, I truly understood why I had been so consumed with envy.
I stood, shaking off the weight of my injuries, and extended a hand toward her.
"You know, Satire… I'm almost…" I smirked, narrowing my eyes, "and I mean almost, jealous of you."
Her expression shattered in an instant. The hope in her eyes, the arrogance that had once danced like wildfire behind her gaze, all of it drained away.
Her smile vanished, replaced by a flicker of something raw. Something helpless.
My blade turned pure white, radiant and blinding.
Wings emerged from my back, feathers so brilliant they shimmered like glass under sunlight.
For a single heartbeat, I looked like an angel.
Then the wings withered. Feathers fell to dust. In their place rose bones, jagged, broken, decayed.
Rot spread like ivy through my limbs as a twisted, divine mockery revealed itself. From the earth, bones answered me.
Joints and skulls, ribs and femurs, crawling out from the ground like memories I could no longer suppress.
Satire stepped back. Her lip trembled.
"Oh? What is it, Satire?" My voice cracked with cruel delight. "Is it fear? Regret? No… it must be despair."
She tried to speak, but her voice caught. "Impossible… this is impossible. Not even I, not for someone like you. Someone within my same tier… It's unthinkable."
She turned to flee. A skeletal arm coiled around her waist like a serpent, fingers grinding against her ribs. It pulled tight with a sickening crack.
I stepped forward. My voice echoed like thunder. "The name of my Regalia…"
Bones rose higher, spiraling skyward in unnatural elegance. From their core formed a giant skeletal god, assembled from the remnants of Lancestual.
"God Leviathan of Wind and Envy: Hastur."
The creature towered above us, its body gleaming with a sickly white hue fractured by veins of black decay.
In its hand, it held a spear. The True Ancestral Spear. Its winds didn't swirl, they screamed. They tore
Satire stared upward, her pupils dilated in disbelief. "How… how is this fair?"
I tilted my head and smiled, my voice soft but wicked. "Don't tell me, Satire… are you jealous?"
Before she could answer, the spear plunged through her. She didn't scream. Her body lifted into the air, impaled on impossible wrath.
The moment held, silent as a prayer. Then the spear detonated, releasing not a blast of energy, but a truth too great for her to withstand.
Her form unraveled. She faded, not just from view, but from memory, from consequence, from meaning.
Carried away by the wind, just another leaf torn from the tree of the world. Silence fell upon the world as my mind slowly eroded from the experience.
I scoffed, realizing what had happened; she was erased from that moment entirely.
I walked forward. I don't know how long it took me to reach her. Time didn't matter anymore.
When I finally did, I sat down beside her body, what remained of it, and cradled it in my arms. I looked up, toward the empty sky.
The stars first seemed silent, but then a voice spoke, demanding, screaming in ritualistic cadence.
[Nicole looked upon the Heavens. She would live. She would continue. She would become. She will match the world above and burn it to its knees.]
This was my calling. The world gave me a mission; it gave me a reason to live beyond this. I smiled. I clutched Jennifer even tighter.
I took her ability, yes, but only the control she wielded.
The grasp of every strike, every chance, every thread of what might be… I stripped that away.
I've found out that to face this monster, I must become one.
I exhaled sharply, feeling the finality settle. "If that is what I must do… then I will kill God."