My gut churned and my throat tasted like bile as I teleported again and again, flicking from dagger to dagger. The moment Ignariel stepped forward, I vanished from sight and appeared behind it, slashing toward the back of his leg. It barely deflected the blow, snarling as it turned to counter, but I was already gone.
"Little pest!" Ignariel growled in frustration.
Teleport. Slash. Evade. Repeat.
Each blink through space tightened the coil that is twisting my gut. I pushed the bile and vomit back down my throat, but I didn’t let up. I needed this pompous, theatric asshole occupied.
While I danced with death, Sakura and Kazuha knelt beside Yunjin.
The chains of white flame coiled tightly, lashing out as they tried to repel their touch. Sakura raised the Temporal Vow, casting a sphere of golden light to hold the fire back, while Kazuha moved her arms and hands gracefully, willing Stillveil to carefully wrap around the bonds.
But they wouldn’t break.
“It’s like trying to tear apart a void,” Sakura muttered through clenched teeth.
“I feel nothing in the chains. They’re bound by emptiness,” Kazuha said. “Not just fire. How do you even break nothing?" She growled in frustration.
Yunjin’s voice rasped, barely audible, “By filling it first.”
The two angels looked at her.
“Passion,” Yunjin whispered with a gentle smile to her sisters. “It’s not just his flame. It’s mine too. Feel something... feel what sets you ablaze. Fill the emptiness. Feel — so that you can have something to break. That’s the only way you’ll free me.”
Stillveil pulsed with indecision. The Temporal Vow flickered.
Then—Sakura closed her eyes. And felt.
The warmth of memory. Her first descent. Her first song. The moment she realized angels could remember, and that memory could be beautiful even if it could painful. She remembered the times she sifted through the memories of stars and entire planets. She remembered lifetimes of what ifs and what could have beens, an eternity of choices made and not made, and the infinite consequences they caused.
These memories are not empty, they are all filled with what the beings felt, whether they be good or bad. History — time — is shaped by emotion, wars were started for less, death was given and taken for lesser, and life was breathed by even the lowest of creatures.
She remembered Seren, the time when they first met, really met — not some memory or vision she keeps asking whether it would be the one to unfold — but always, always under those cherry blossom trees when he and Kazuha freed her from her stasis. She remembered last night, the feeling of finally kissing him sent warmth all throughout her body that the Temporal Vow teased her until she fell asleep. Those were all real — the joy, the bliss — and she wouldn't have it any other way — and she certainly wouldn't want it erased or, in Ignariel's words — sanctified.
Kazuha took a breath and summoned grace—the dance, the laughter, the flicker of joy that once made her wings flutter without thought. She remembered love, not perfection. For it is love that makes things look perfect despite the imperfections. No dance is perfect, there is always something to improve, but it is also because of this that she loves to dance, to move. To feel the joy of moving, to feel the joy and awe of those who watch her. Mistakes are painful, shameful even, and erasing them is a truly tempting offer. But to also erase joy — the joy of doing something you love — that is unforgivable.
She remembered Seren holding back the Purity Wraith as she froze. She remembered walking with him, finally not alone as she moves with grace. She remembers the night she kissed him, how much she wanted to move her lips against Seren's for all eternity. He is the third that she loved in her eons long life, first was her sisters, then dancing — and she won't give them up, not like this, not for something as shallow as Ignariel's sanctity.
And their relics responded.
Stillveil shimmered with radiant heat. The Vow pulsed like a heartbeat in bloom. The chains around Yunjin cracked. The Seraph of Flame flexed her arms, ready to snap the bounds once they're weak enough.
But then—
Ignariel turned after dodging a slash from me.
And it spoke a single name.
“Seraphiniel!”
The hymn changed.
"What?" Sakura faltered - the Temporal Vow's glow dimmed in power.
"Did you honestly think I was the first to awaken among the Counters?" It bellowed.
"Of course not! It was Seraphiniel. The Prophet." It laughed as it reveled in Sakura's confusion.
Its head suddenly moved, evading my dagger to which I teleported to, hoping to strike the pompous bastard in the mouth to shut him up. Instead, it caught me by the wrist and held me dangling by it.
Its eyes now turned to me, one blazing with grey fire, one mockingly red. "When do you think she woke up, Sakura?"
Sakura panted, she's hyperventilating. Her focus shattered, her defenses faltered, Ignariel's flames blaze stronger around them leaving Kazuha alone to protect all three of them from the inferno.
"Sakura. It's trying to get under your skin," Kazuha said urgently, swirling Stillveil in a protective sphere around them, though it won't hold long.
"It's no use, sister," Yunjin croaks. "She's already sifting."
Sakura's eyes glowed an unnatural gold. The Temporal Vow pulsed, trying to stabilize and anchor Sakura in this timeline.
"Seraphiniel, she..." she stuttered in between heavy breaths, then she met my eyes as I'm being held dangling by Ignariel, "...she awakened when you were born. It took her 17 years to find you, and when she did..." she faltered.
"She did what?" I asked, knowing the answer but dreading the truth of it.
"She.." She hesitated. "She sent the Purity Wraiths to your village."
My whole world collapsed—like the ground vanished beneath me. But where rage should be, there was only numbness, a void. Ignariel's flames stripped me of my emotions at the very moment Sakura revealed what truly happened to my village, to my family.
Ignariel laughed, rough and ashy, "You see, Seraphiniel does not just revel in pulling the darkest memories out of a being. She revels in orchestrating them herself!" It laughed again, booming as it threw me to a nearby pillar, yet I felt no pain. Ignariel's power also erased what I should have felt physically.
"And how does it... feel... Solari?" It turned to look at me. "To feel nothing when you should have felt pain, sorrow, rage, vengeance? Isn't it better?"
I don't know. I don't know because I can't feel – just, a void.
Then the inferno breaches through Stillveil as Kazuha's strength finally breaks her. Kazuha screamed as she threw her body between the fire and Sakura, wrapping her obsidian wings around her as a last resort. Stillveil took the brunt, but the shockwave sent both angels tumbling backward.
Sakura knelt, eyes wide, shaken to her core. Kazuha lays prone, the floor beneath her littered with obsidian shards from her shattered wing.
Ignariel’s revelations had been more than physical—it was emotional. And now mine and Sakura’s resolve were shattering.
“Get up!” Yunjin shouted through the hoarseness of her voice—but her sisters can't move, one from a broken wing, the other from fear.
Even I was faltering, now. The teleportation wore me and the Compass thin. Every movement came slower. Every breath heavier. And the weight of the revelation finally bears down on me, Ignariel now allowing me to slowly feel the pain of everything.
Ignariel advanced towards Kazuha. I tried to teleport one last time, to put myself between Kazuha and Ignariel, but I had no strength left to throw my dagger.
Ignariel now revels. Arrogant. Confident of his victory. The flame in its hand roared.
Then—
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