Gaius looked down at Ashoka, sprawled on the ground before him, and said nothing for a long moment.
Then his eyes moved past him, toward the fire still eating through what remained of the barnhouse, before finally speaking.
"Oh? Are you mad? It is not pretty, I won't lie, but then again, few things in this world really are."
He sighed softly and glanced back at Ashoka.
"You seem to have a lot to say."
When Ashoka finally met Gaius's calm gaze, all the blood drained from his face. His body began to tremble visibly, the words stuck in his throat.
His head dropped down, eyes landing on the clean hands of the prince. He imagined them wrapping around his own throat, his skin becoming pale and yellow as the grip around his neck tightened.
"W-why?"
I am going to fucking die.
When he realised what he had just said, he knew he had just did the stupidest thing in his life. There was no follow-up thought, no plan, no lawyer's instinct on what to say next.
Gaius did not seem to mind his question though.
"Why." He repeated Ashoka's word as if he had expected them but was still disappointed.
Shaking his head slightly, he crouched, meeting Ashoka's lowered gaze.
"You are naive, Ashoka, very naive. And that's reasonable for someone as young as you. Except, you are also very greedy. You do not set events into motion and then declare yourself exempt from where they lead." He looked over Ashoka's shoulder, eyes travelling across the trail of golden flames.
"You wanted clean hands and a dirty outcome? You want to save this kingdom and the millions within it, but don't have the courage to let a single person die in return? You want to do something vile, but still be called a saint? What's next, you want the Crown over your head as well?"
Ashoka remained silent, the words stuck in his throat. Every part of him wanted to argue, but he just couldn't bring himself to do so.
Seeing that, Gaius continued;
"As for your questions, it is simple, really. Oswald would not go on a rampage and fail to take a single life, and Cathal would not give a damn about fighting if there wasn't a corpse by Oswald's side."
He pointed a finger at Ashoka's chest, "And the reason I didn't tell you there would be casualty was because you would have definitely gone to Oswald otherwise, setting up a devious trap for me in my own conspiracy. But you can't do that now, can you?"
Ashoka did not have an answer to that, because that was exactly what he would've done. Yes, he despised Oswald greatly, but what did it matter if he was going to kill Oswald eventually anyways? It was only the same goal but a different path.
He did not stay silent for long this time though. Perhaps the accumulating hatred finally found a way through the thick wall of fear, and he looked the prince straight in the eyes.
"But you didn't had to kill every single one of them, you fucking monster!"
That finally seemed to get a reaction out of Gaius. A deep scowl formed on his hideous, scarred face as his voice turned threatening.
"Monster... You say?" He growled, and grabbed Ashoka's hand before bringing it in front of his face, forcing him to look at his own fingers.
Ashoka felt a noose tighten around his neck at that moment, and as Gaius continued to speak, a feeling of cold fury suddenly mixing with the already overwhelming presence. "These are the same hands you used to poison my brother, right? They also have blood on them, just like me. The only difference is that you don't have to see the blood on them, while I do."
He let go of Ashoka's hand and stood up, still looking down at him. "Cowards. Fucking cowards, all of you. Every ambition has a price, something that one must be willing to sacrifice. Do you think you are strong enough to not have to pay that price?"
He laughed.
"When my father fought that Great Devil, he decided that his own life was the price he was willing to pay for all of yours. You have ambitions as great as him, don't you? So, is your life worth as much as his too?" He lowered his head, his voice becoming abnormally cold and chilling. "No. I could stack a hundred corpses of the boy named Ashoka and it wouldn't buy me a single piece of copper, much less the death of a Great Devil or the lives of the millions in Casamir."
Finally, he turned around and clicked his tongue, the chilling pressure that had enveloped Ashoka's soul slowly receding.
For a long moment, Ashoka did not move. He remained on the ground, knees drawn up, listening to his own heartbeat gradually slow down to something survivable. The fire crackled somewhere behind him.
He wanted to hate Gaius cleanly. He wanted the man to be simply wrong, a villain whose logic fell apart the moment you looked at it directly. But every time he turned the words over, they just couldn't be ignored.
'You wanted clean hands and a dirty outcome.'
'Cowards. Fucking cowards, all of you.'
The accusation sat in him like a splinter, small and impossible to fully dig out.
He had entered this Nightmare almost a week ago, and for every one of his actions, he had walked a thin line between what was morally just and what wasn't. The hypocrisy of his own actions had never truly escaped him, thanks to the lawyer potion's changes. He had always set them aside to be dealt with after the trial ended, but Gaius just now had robbed him of that luxury.
"Stand up. I still need to get you to the palace, we don't have much time."
Ashoka did not speak, and neither did he stand up, silently staring at Gaius's back.
"Ah... The price of ambition..." The whisper was soft, a mumble only to himself.
The words that the spell had spoken at the beginning of this Nightmare appeared in his mind, sharp and clear this time.
[The nation of disorder has designed your first nightmare.]
His breath caught.
He thought he finally understood what this trial was trying to achieve. In hindsight, it was quite obvious, wasn't it? After all, it was a trial created for him by his very sefirah itself.
The Trial was trying to change him, Change him into someone fit for the dream realm, or perhaps someone who could wear the Crown of the Black Emperor over his head.
Someone who was cold, cruel, merciless and ruthless, who's vicious lies settled deep into the people's heart as comfortably as a lover's praise would. Someone who would not hesitate to drive a knife into an Ally's back when the situation demanded it.
Every argument Gaius had made was correct on its own terms. A bad argument he could have dismissed and walked away from unscathed. This one was the opposite, because a good enough argument was also infectious, seeping deep into a person's mind and slowly changing them.
Standing up slowly, he gritted his teeth.
No, fuck you.
You will not change who I am.
Even back in his world, he had never been a self introspective person. In fact, he had not even been a comparatively smart kid before taking the lawyer potion. But even ignoring all that, the one thing he almost always knew was the things he hated.
And so, he would not let the world or the spell dictate who he would become. He would not become like Gaius or Oswald, someone who could uncaringly sacrifice a life for their own goals, whatever they might be.
He felt the weight of the farmer's son's corpse still heavy on his palm, and then clenched them tightly.
Gaius wanted him to not be greedy? No, fuck that.
He wasn't going to kill Eldrin.
Not for the crown and not for the Nightmare. If completing this Nightmare meant becoming someone who could look a thirteen-year-old in the eye and end his life for a selfish outcome, then he would rather fail the Nightmare.
It wasn't bravery. He knew that much about himself. It was closer to stubbornness. He simply refused.
He was going to complete this nightmare the way he wanted.
***
The outskirts, a few kilometers north of the border wall, near the outer farming settlements.
The plains stretched wide and empty under the moonless sky, silvered faintly by distant torchlight. Far across that expanse, a dark shape moved at terrible speed, its four legs tearing furrows into the earth, dust and displaced soil trailing behind it like a wound that wouldn't close. Closely behind it, four human figures, decked in intricate armour and wielding fearsome weapon were giving chase. From time to time, one of the figures would launch a whistling magical projectile toward the abomination, which caused it to turn around and attack the four awakened warriors. But not long after, the abomination would quickly run away, heading in its original path as if it had a more diserable target.
Ahead of it, almost ten kilometres away, the tall walls of one of the outer town settlements rose from the plain, torches burning steadily along its length, throwing long orange stripes across the empty ground just outside.
The Fallen abomination was heading straight for them, closing distance with an ease that made a mockery of its size.
Renn watched it from a low cliff overlooking the plain, jaw tight and a grave expression on his face.
Behind him, one of his men lay propped against a rock, breathing shallow and uneven while another cohort member pressed her hands hard against a section of flesh across his ribs that had turned a deep purple. The wound wasn't fatal, but It just wasn't nothing either, and they didn't have the numbers to spare for it. So, Renn and another member had stayed behind to tend to the wounded member.
"How long?" Renn said tensely, without turning.
"Just one more minute." A woman's voice answered from the back, tired. The flesh beneath her palm was wriggling as if something sinister was moving below the skin. "It's a blunt force injury, and so there's a lot of internal bleeding. It's taking time for my powers to seep in."
Renn said nothing for a moment. The reason he had decided to stay behind because his aspect centred around speed, and hence could help him and the other awakened who had decided to stay behind in joining with the other group fast.
The path of the monster — which by now had been indentified as a Fallen Demon — was a straight line towards the small settlement in the distance. It would only take 30 or so minutes to reach the mass of humans within, even with all the slowing down his cohort's members could cause the monster. They really needed some back up from the ascended commanders fast, but it seems they wouldn't arrive any time soon.
Renn's eyes followed it forward, past the empty plains, to where he expected it to eventually collide with the settlement's gate.
Except it wasn't slowing as it neared the wall. If anything, it seemed to be angling slightly.
Renn frowned and looked away from the walls, further out, to where a scattering of small farmhouses sat outside the settlement's perimeter, spaced a few kilometers apart across the dark fields. Most were dark and quiet, their occupants long since fallen asleep for the night.
One of them sat directly in the monster's path, and worst of all, he thought he recognised that house in particular.
Renn's eyes suddenly widened.
Isn't that Sir Cathal's house?!
The distance between the Fallen Demon and the house was closing fast, far faster than Renn liked, and even from here, he could see it wasn't going to reach the wall first, but the house.
"...Fuck."
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[A/N: I know this chapter is very short, but this is only the first part, and I'm almost done with the other half. When I was writing, i realised that the atmosphere didn't match or complimented each other, so I just decided to split the chapter into two with a scene in between. Though I'll be on a trip so it'll take some time editing the second part.]