(Sora)
Frantically, my eyes darted around the ceremony hall.
Nothing, nobody. Just the silence and me.
I should've died immediately. So why am I still hopelessly hanging on, delaying the inevitable?
I stumbled. Backwards, forwards, I couldn't really tell. Pain didn't make sense. Weight didn't either. Was I falling? Floating? So much pressure but none at all. My mind screamed questions I couldn't answer.
Who knew that Fate would crown me the same day it killed me?
I wasn't sure. But it was hot, white-hot. Searing skin. Screaming heat.
Blood pooled around my chin, but I wasn't coughing—couldn't, had no lungs. No lungs, can't cough, can't breathe. Just the slow, humiliating delay of death.
Then I looked down. My hands instinctively went to my torso… and found nothing. Nothing to grasp. My eyes widen with the realization. Only warm blood pooled across my palms, thick and metallic, sliding down over my leather white gloves. My legs trembled, but somehow I was still standing. Somehow, I hadn't collapsed.
Nothing held me together. No spine. No organs. Not even bone. Just weak fragments of skin and ruined tissue barely connecting my upper half to my lower. And yet… I hadn't fallen.
Had I ever been standing at all?
Heat faded, icy numbness replaced it. Creeping through every leftover fiber of my body. My arms shook. My chest... at least what remained of it was agony and absence all at once. My vision flickered, deep crimson red bleeding into black, then back. Sound distorted, echoing as if it belonged to someone else entirely.
My breath? Don't know, but something hitched, I hitched as I uselessly gasped, no. Not possible, I wasn't gasping, it was more like a neurological memory of it.
Blood poured freely from the perfect circle carved through my torso—just beneath the curve of my chest, where my abdomen used to be.
What I felt was horror.
But not just horror.
…Relief.
I let my head tilt back, staring at the ceiling as if it owed me an explanation. A small, incredulous laugh escaped me, or at least... my throat tried. Hollow, broken, but alive enough to make me smirk. It was spectacular. The metallic taste of copper and iron, heavy on my tongue. It was... spectacular.
I blinked against the spinning chaos. My eyes fell back down to my hands, which were now out in front of me. The blood. The warmth. The cold. The searing absence of anything solid beneath my fingers.
Ha. Amazing.
Even like this, standing on the edge between life and death, I couldn't help but grin. It was stupid, I was stupid. The arrogance of stupidity, the stupidity of arrogance. Wow.
I was just knighted.
"Do you, Sora De Astra Knight, solemnly swear to uphold the honor of the kingdom of Vangardia, protect its people, and wield your sword with the utmost courage and justice?"
Sora De Astra Knight, son of Pierro De Astra Knight and Nemi Von Veyra Knight. The youngest member of the royal Knight family to ever be crowned the title of Imperial Knight without the tutelage of the academy. On this fateful day, the ceremony was held to honor his new title.
That's me. Sora.
Queen Illyana De Astra Knight—my aunt—vermilion hair flowing in waves down her ceremonial attire of the same color as she raised my silver blade. Her icy blue gaze locked onto mine as I knelt before her, clad in enchanted black garments masquerading as armor. Very boring. Very bland.
But the cape—oh, the cape—draped over my shoulders perfectly white and pristine, silky smooth to match the leather of my white gloves. Pure glory. Pure me.
"I do," I said, loud, confident, maybe obnoxiously. But I didn't care.
"Do you solemnly swear to protect the weak and serve with loyalty to your sovereign even at the cost of your own life?"
"I swear."
I remember vividly—my fist tightening against the red carpet beneath me as I thought: 'I don't really feel like dying, but who cares if I lied a little, right?'
How ironic.
Illyana lowered my blade and tapped each shoulder with the flat end.
"Rise, Sir Sora De Astra Knight. May your blade remain sharp, your heart steadfast, and your name remembered." And I remember the way her voice boomed with a kind of authority across the court that only she could hold, followed by lots and lots of applause that thundered through the hall.
I stood and soaked it in far longer than necessary. Smiled like a hero. Adjusted my sword strap just to waste time basking in their adulation.
Arrogant fool.
My father clapped from the front row, eyes sharp and knowing. like our fair and wonderful queen; they were siblings after all, although he was probably thinking I'd somehow find a way to embarrass myself before the day ended.
Guess what, Dad, I did.
Behind him was my little clever brat of a sister—my so-called 'twin', who was clearly disappointed I hadn't embarrassed myself.
I walked off the stage and joined my family.
"Well, don't faint, sis, I made it," I told her with a playful nudge and a grin with all charm and zero subtlety.
To no surprise, she rolled her eyes at me.
It was funny, despite us being twins, we looked nothing alike, bar maybe our faces. She was more like a miniature Mom from her attitude to her emerald eyes that always sparkled with that mischievous glint, and just like Mom, she also had red hair, though it wasn't the same vermilion shade as Auntie's; it was more of a gingery color. Meanwhile, I inherited Dad's silver hair. My eyes, on the other hand, were unique. My right eye was a shade of dark blue—my left—the color of raw honey. Mismatched eyes that my mother always called…."Distinctive."
Sis and I bantered, the usual banter of siblings. She taunted me, and I pissed her off. She called me insufferable. And I teased what she wore.
Seriously, what she wore was just not her. Like at all. She was a wild spirit contained by ceremonial clothing she hated, Katarina De Astra Knight. I would never admit it, but suddenly, as I looked down and saw the fleeting attempts of my useless heart... I missed her.
My heart... a deep red, barely larger than my fist. That tiny thing was what frantically tried to keep me alive. And I saw it, just peeking from right underneath the curve of my lower chest, from the peak of the circle.
So that's what my heart looks like?