Ash landed on his back against a hard surface. Since he hadn't prepared for the fall, he felt a sharp pain shoot through his back.
"What a way to be thrown into an unknown world. I think this makes three times now," he thought, somewhat amused.
Looking around, he saw absolutely nothing. Well, it wasn't that he couldn't see, but rather everything was darkness devoid of light. There were no stars or moon. However, he could see a great amount of black water surrounding the place where he stood.
"It must be because of the Shadows attribute," Ash thought as he observed his surroundings, noting that he was on some kind of coral plateau spanning a few hundred meters in diameter.
"Looks like I'm in the Forgotten Shore," he murmured, beginning to walk as threads of light gray enveloped his body, summoning the Mantle of the Mist.
The gray fabric armor enveloped his body. After lowering the hood, he summoned his sword in case he had to fight any shell scavengers. His steps were silent, and his face was calm, as if he were detached from the world.
Ash walked a bit until he made out some figures that he didn't recognize at first. Drawing a little closer, he distinguished golden-blonde hair and skin as white as a doll's.
"It can't be. Seriously, out of all the places I could have landed, did it have to be with Cassia?"
Wait, then she should be around here.
Ash waited for Nephis to arrive, as was supposed to happen. However, the minutes passed, but no one came. Ash surveyed the entire surface but saw no traces of Changing Star.
Ash honestly didn't know what to think or how to act now. Finally, he stopped a few meters away, arms crossed, looking at Cassia. He didn't look at her with perversion or anything beyond quiet contemplation.
He knew Cassia's character was complex. A blind seer who, just by uttering a prophecy and making a choice, triggered a whole series of events that would indirectly guide the world. Many hated her, others liked her.
She was one of those controversial topics that even before he was sent to this world, people couldn't agree on.
He could kill her. In fact, it would be easy. Just one cut, and no one would know what he did. If he eliminated that variable, or killed Sunless, or killed Nephis, or even if he killed all three... what would happen in the end?
Ash sighed.
However things were, this wasn't his world.
He didn't care about the fate of what happened with it.
Whether the Sovereigns killed each other and Asterion killed the other two and consumed humanity... he didn't care. After all, if his theory was correct, the path of Ascension and Profanation were two sides of the same coin.
A beast evolves into a monster by acquiring intelligence, then into a demon by gaining consciousness, then becomes a devil by developing powers, then a tyrant by ruling weaker creatures under its domain, then a Terror by consuming its domain, and then a Titan when it collapses upon itself, reforming into a new being.
Or that was the conclusion he had reached after reading the books on the ranks of nightmare creatures and their characteristics.
Ash took a step, raising his sword to make his decision. However, he stopped when he looked at the girl.
Cassia lay curled up on herself, her shoulders trembling as she tried to contain the sobs escaping her lips.
Her pale, delicate hands clutched her own arms as if trying to hold onto something, anything, in the midst of the darkness that enveloped her.
She couldn't see, that was her Flaw. She had been abandoned and alone, which amplified her fear of death.
"Please..." she whispered in a broken voice, speaking to no one, because she believed there was no one. "Please, I don't want to die... I don't want to..."
Her words were lost in a choked whimper as tears rolled down her cheeks.
She was a girl, barely a teenager like him, like all those who had been thrown in after being infected by the Spell. Her sight was nonexistent, leaving her world as nothing but emptiness. Now all she could hope for was to die. To die alone and scared in this hellish place.
"Mom..." she sobbed, curling up more. "I'm scared..."
Ash watched her from the shadows. His sword remained in his hand, the edge gleaming faintly with that light peculiar to Awakened weapons. He could end it now. One movement, quick and clean, and Cassia would cease to be a problem. No one would know. Nephis would arrive, find the body, and everything would follow its course.
But then...
A memory struck his mind with the force of a hammer.
He had cried like that too.
He had been nine years old when it happened. The wrecked car on the lonely highway, the smell of gasoline and blood mixing in the cold night air.
His mother, her face pale from blood loss, looking at him with those eyes that tried to smile even though pain consumed her. He, small and helpless, holding her hand while asking for help over and over on the phone that no one answered.
The empty road, the minutes that stretched like hours, the sensation of life slipping through his fingers.
"Ash... my son..." his mother's voice had been barely a whisper. "You're a good boy. Please... don't let the world change you. If you want to help, you don't have to help everyone... just those you believe you can help."
She had died in his arms. And he had been left alone, holding her cold body, crying until he had no tears left in the middle of a road that led nowhere.
Ash tightened his grip on his sword. His knuckles whitened from the force. His previous thoughts, that cold and distant monologue about worlds he didn't care about, about destinies that weren't his, crashed against the image of that curled-up girl, against the memory of his own crying, against his mother's last words.
"Don't let the world change you."
But the world had already changed him.
It had hardened him, made him pragmatic, forced him to survive. But deep down, in that core that even years of struggle hadn't been able to fully erode... was he still that boy who wanted to help?
Cassia sobbed again, a sound so fragile that it seemed anything could break her.
"Someone... please..." she murmured, knowing no one would come.
Ash closed his eyes. The sword trembled slightly in his hand.
He could kill her. It would be logical. It would be efficient. Cassia was an unpredictable variable, a catalyst for misfortunes, someone whose visions had triggered wars and deaths. Without her, perhaps the future would be different. Perhaps better. Perhaps worse.
But what did the future matter?
What did the fate of the Sovereigns matter, or of Nephis, or of Sunless?
What mattered was what he decided to do here and now. Not out of obligation. Not out of responsibility or morality imposed by others. But because... because he wanted to.
And at that moment, looking at that scared girl who just wanted her mother, Ash knew he couldn't kill her.
Whether for good or ill.
Whether he regretted it later, whether he cursed himself for his idiocy.
He would help her. Not because he should. But because he wanted to.
Ash exhaled slowly. The tension in his body didn't disappear completely, but the edge of his sword lowered slightly. He took a step, this time making his footsteps resonate against the coral surface. He didn't want to scare her more than she already was.
Another step. Another one.
Cassia tensed at the sound. She stopped sobbing immediately, her small body going rigid, the fear on her blind face transforming into something sharper, more alert.
"Who...?" her voice was barely a thread, trembling like a leaf in the wind. "Who's there?"
Ash continued walking. His steps were slow, deliberately audible. He didn't want to scare her more than she already was. He wanted her to know someone was approaching, that he wouldn't take her by surprise.
He stopped about three meters away. Close enough for her to hear him, far enough not to invade her space.
He watched her for a moment. Her golden hair, damp and disheveled. Her skin white as porcelain, stained with tears and dirt. Her blind eyes, open but seeing nothing, searching in the darkness for a presence she could only imagine.
And then, with a voice that he tried to keep neutral but which, without him knowing, held a warmth he hadn't expressed in years, Ash asked:
"Why are you crying?"
The question hung in the air like a suspended feather.
Cassia blinked.
Her lips moved without emitting sound. She seemed like a fish out of water, trying to process something she didn't understand.
So much time had passed waiting for the worst, waiting for the blow, waiting for abandonment, waiting for death, that a question like this... a question that wasn't an accusation or a mockery... that question simply didn't fit into her understanding of the world.
"I..." she stammered. "I..."
But the words wouldn't come.
Instead, the sobs returned, though different now. Less from fear, more from something she herself couldn't identify.
Relief, perhaps. Confusion. A tiny, terrifying hope struggling to be born in her chest.
"Easy," said Ash, and his voice was strangely soft. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Cassia shook her head, an erratic and desperate movement.
"I don't understand," she said in a low voice. "Everyone else ignores me. They never talk to me or pretend I don't exist. Why you? Why do you want to help me? What do you want from me?"
Ash was silent for a moment. Then, unhurriedly, he sat down on the coral, crossing his legs.
He brought himself to her level, or even slightly below. A small gesture, almost insignificant, but one that said a lot: I'm not a threat. I'm here with you. Not above you.
"I don't want anything from you," he finally responded. "I just heard you crying and... well... I asked."
"But..." Cassia bit her lower lip, fighting against tears. "But people don't do that. People don't approach me. People... avoid me because in their eyes I'll only be a burden, someone who will die."
Ash tilted his head, observing her with quiet curiosity.
"And you?" he asked. "What do you want?"
The question seemed to completely disarm her. Cassia opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. Her trembling hands twisted in her lap.
"I... I just want..." her voice broke. "I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be afraid all the time. I don't want... I don't want to die here, in the darkness, without anyone knowing I existed..."
The words spilled out like a dam finally giving way. Cassia cried openly now, without trying to hide it, without shame.
Ash listened to her.
He simply listened.
He didn't try to console her with empty words. He didn't promise things he couldn't fulfill. He didn't say "everything will be okay" because both knew it probably wouldn't be true. He just stayed there, present, a shadow among shadows that had decided, for some reason, not to be indifferent.
When Cassia's sobs finally diminished, when her breathing became more calm, Ash spoke again.
"I don't know what's going to happen," he said with brutal honesty. "This place is dangerous. There are things that will want to eat us. And I'm not your savior or your protector. I have my own path, my own reasons for being here."
He paused, letting the words settle.
"But for now... for now, you're not alone. Okay?"
Cassia lifted her tear-stained face, her blind eyes uselessly searching for the source of that voice that spoke to her without condescension, without fear, without hatred.
"Why?" she asked again, and it was a genuine question, without accusation, only the bewilderment of someone who has learned that kindness always has a hidden price. "Why are you doing this?"
Ash looked at her for a long moment. The wind of the Forgotten Shore moved his hood, revealing eyes that had seen too much, that had cried too much, that had learned to harden to survive.
But that now, facing this blind and alone girl, allowed themselves a moment of vulnerability.
"Because someone once taught me," he said slowly, "that you don't have to help everyone. Only those you believe you can help."
He stood up, brushing the coral dust from his tunic.
"And today, for some reason, I believe I can help you."
He extended his hand toward her, palm open, a gesture she couldn't see but somehow, mysteriously, could feel.
"Come on," said Ash. "I don't promise anything. I don't know what will happen tomorrow. But for now... for now, you're not alone."
Cassia trembled.
And then, with a slowness that spoke of immense fear and a tiny hope that refused to die, she extended her hand.
Her fingers found Ash's.
They were warm.
For the first time in a very, very long time, Cassia didn't feel completely alone in the darkness.
And Ash, while holding that small, trembling hand, felt that perhaps, just perhaps, the boy who cried on that empty highway could finally begin to forgive himself for not being able to save his mother.
Because he had saved someone.
And sometimes, that was enough.
Ash wondered if his mother would approve of him doing this, of him helping this person despite everything.