Archive of Our Own

The comms system to his room chimed with a request. Blade slowly opened his eyes, not otherwise moving from where he knelt in meditation. The tenuous connection he’d established between bracers slowly faded away into nothing more than a taunting warmth against his arm.

 

“Yes?” he said into his empty room.

 

“It’s Firefly,” came over the speakers. “I was wondering if I could talk to you about something personal?”

 

Wordlessly, he gestured for the ship to open the door. It slid open with the faintest hiss of pressurization release. Firefly stood framed in the opening, her hands clasped together uncertainly in front of her. She offered him a weak smile as she stepped into his room, the door closing behind her.

 

She hesitated by the door for a moment. He watched her silently, giving her the time to decide how she wanted to proceed. He would not mind if she spoke from over there. He didn’t mind much of anything anymore. She knew that very well.

 

Firefly didn’t stay there though. She approached and took a seat on the floor about an arm’s length away from him, her legs crossed over each other—as comfortable as she could get without disturbing his room. This wasn’t going to be a short conversation then.

 

He wondered if he should offer her the cushion he was kneeling on. It had been a gift from Silver Wolf after she had burst into his room to find him kneeling on the floor one too many times. He didn’t actually need it, any pain in his knees would melt away within moments of standing, but Firefly couldn’t say the same.

 

She started to speak before he could decide.

 

“You told me I should stop being ignorant once… No, that’s not quite right.” She let out a short huff and her gaze dropped down to her hands. Her fingers began to fidget with each other. Quietly, she continued, “It’s funny. Now that I’m here, I’m not quite sure where to start. Sorry for wasting your time. I’ll prepare better next time.”

 

Blade hummed softly to let her know he took no offense and let the familiar silence descend between them. For all the time they had spent together, he and Firefly had never quite been able to find common ground to exist in. Their goals were simply too different.

 

Still, they had had each other’s backs in many life or death scenarios over the years and spent even more time together in their downtime between scripts, and it had built a rapport between them.

 

After several long moments, Firefly’s hands stilled. Keeping her gaze down on them, she started again. “I’ve been texting Stelle since Penacony. It’s strange. She’s both so different and exactly the same as she was back when she was with us.”

 

Blade didn’t remember Stelle very well. His memories of most things were fragmented by his mara episodes, but he was relatively certain she had vanished a few months or years after he had first joined. During their overlapping time in the Stellaron Hunters, she had mostly kept herself to Kafka’s company, so he didn’t feel particularly confident on his ability to speak to how Stelle had or hadn’t changed.

 

“If you have a question about that Trailblazer, Kafka would be better to ask.”

 

“It’s not about her, specifically.” A flush painted itself slowly across her cheeks and she pulled her knees up to her chest so she could hug her arms around them. “And it’s different, anyways. I just thought you would be better to ask about this.”

 

“Alright.” He still thought Kafka would be the best to ask for personal advice, but he could offer what insights he possessed. For whatever use they would be. He’d never been able to direct his own life well.

 

“So, I wanted to ask—“ She stopped abruptly and looked up at him. Her sunrise eyes burned with that flame that shone so brightly from her candlewick life. “No, first I need to apologize if my questions get too personal. If they do, you can tell me to drop it and I will. I don’t want to bring up bad memories.”

 

It seemed rather pointless for her to care about something like that. What did Blade have left of himself at this point other than the memories that cut into him? The pain was all that remained in this shell.

 

“Go on,” he told her.

 

“Does it ever get easier? Having someone you love look at you like a stranger?”

 

Cold, jade eyes, lit with nothing but fear and anger, flooded over the view of his room. A gut-punch of useless rage and hurt followed up in their wake.

 

Those eyes had changed at the end. The coldness hadn’t left, but fear had melted into resolve and anger into a spark of pity. It had almost been worse. His memories of Dan Feng might still be fragmented, but he remembered now how warm he had been when they were alone.

 

Imbibitor Lunae wasn’t warm anymore. All that remained was that cold distance, no matter how close Blade brought his sword.

 

Ah. So that’s what she’d meant.

 

He took a slow breath under the lingering image of that censorious jade gaze to recollect himself. Firefly didn’t deserve his hatred. It started to dispel itself slowly.

 

“No, it doesn't,” he told her honestly.

 

She let out a single bitter laugh. “I kind of figured you'd say that. Guess it was silly of me to hope.” She curled into herself, an exhaustion that Blade knew far too well crawling across her face.

 

He looked away from her. The blank walls of his empty room had no solace to offer either of them. What a hopeless exercise love was. Hatred was easier.

 

Still… He had been happy once. The memories of his first life were incomplete, but there was brightness hidden between the cracks made by the tragedy.

 

Firefly’s existence would be so short—she deserved what few joys she could find.

 

“You still have time. You can make something new,” he told the blank wall before him.

 

There was a shuffle of fabric next to him. “So could you. You've got more time than me.”

 

Blade shook his head slowly. “My time is already gone.”

 

“You say that, but if you're already gone, then who am I talking to?” With each word, her volume began to steadily rise. “And why does it matter if you live or die?” Her voice broke painfully over the last word. She panted for breath, the only sound left after her outburst.

 

Blade kept his gaze focused on the wall, giving her a moment to recollect herself. She didn’t understand, but he didn’t expect her to. The weight of centuries of existence was one that could only be learned through experience—experience that he never wished her to have. There was nothing he could say to comfort her.

 

“Sorry,” she muttered after a bit. “I didn't mean to yell. I've seen so many of my comrades die already; I don't want to see your death too. It's selfish of me. You deserve to have your wish granted too, even if I can’t understand it.”

 

Blade didn’t know if an abomination deserved such a thing, but he would give everything that he had left to achieve it anyways. His grudges had always been his main driving force, even in his first life. He had gotten distracted for a bit in the pursuit of joy, but he’d seen how that ended.

 

All that remained of his first life was a grotesque mockery and regrets.

 

“Death comes to all eventually,” he murmured, half to himself as that boiling core at his center began to shiver with the first stirrings of gold.

 

He would need to go find Kafka later. She had been responsible for redirecting and suppressing his mara to keep him from going after Imbibitor Lunae since the Loufu. Blade wasn’t ready to confront him again yet. When he had seen Imbibitor Lunae return to his full Vidyadhara glory, something in his bloodlust had started to unravel.

 

It was unacceptable. Their crimes could not be brushed aside and ignored.

 

The centuries under Jingliu’s tutelage could not have been in vain. He had not suffered his sins carved into his flesh just to let their rightful retribution slip away from him on some emotional whim.

 

Yet something in his tattered remnants of a soul objected, and it made his body falter. It was another failure on his part. The end of his last life had been a string of those, and that trend continued with each failed attempt on Imbibitor Lunae’s life.

 

This hunt needed to be seen through until it reached its bloody conclusion, but he was too weak right now.

 

“Yeah,” Firefly agreed quietly, “But not quite yet. We both have a little longer to go.”

 

The silence that settled between them this time was almost comfortable. Blade’s gaze drifted down to the bracer hidden beneath his sleeve.

 

A little longer to go. Yes, he could go a little longer.

 

Elio had promised him an ending to everything that he hated. The script had not reached its end yet. This was merely a delay. Death would take them both in time, no matter what Blade had to do to see it through. If it took the Abundance lodged under there like a cancer, then he would tear the last remnants of that craftsman from beneath his skin without hesitation.

 

—

 

Blade was in the recreational room—which was more like Silver Wolf’s second gaming room at this point—with Firefly and Silver Wolf when the simultaneous echoing triplicate of a recorded cat meow came from their phones. They all paused. There was only one time that they heard that notification sound.

 

“Huh, guess it’s that time already,” Silver Wolf offered as she paused her utter beat-down of him on whatever new fighting game she had gotten her hands on.

 

Blade couldn’t help but feel a little bit relieved at the reprieve. Silver Wolf had dragged both of them out here to help her improve her skills since, apparently, AI were “too predictable.” Holding these fiddly little controllers was difficult with his hands in the state they were these days. It was nice to ease the ache a little by setting down the controller.

 

He watched patiently as Silver Wolf pulled out both her own phone and his. She fiddled with them for a moment and then handed his over to him, the new script already pulled up for him.

 

Blade read his part of the script.

 

Slowly, he started to laugh. It was a dark, bitter sound, utterly devoid of any mirth. Truly, nothing was as cruel as destiny.

 

There, spelled out clearly on his screen, was his doom:

 

 

 

19/9 TC, 8:24:51 system time: Blade and SAM will be dropped off on Huth at the provided coordinates. [ attachment ] Blade will head directly to the first waypoint. [ attachment ]

 

15:08:33 system time: Blade will pull the Trailblazers, Dan Heng and Stelle, out of the wreckage of a ship and take them to safety.

 

15:34:53 system time: The Trailblazers will wake up. Blade and SAM will convince them to join forces to reach the Stellaron.

 

20/9 TC, 13:01:56 system time: Blade and SAM will be separated in a Fragmentum attack. Each will take a Trailblazer with them as they continue towards their destination.

 

26/9 TC, 16:47:12 system time: Blade and SAM will meet at the rendezvous point with their respective Trailblazers.

 

17:29:32 system time: The combined group will battle the Stellaron host.

 

17:44:44 system time: Blade will board the Astral Express with the Trailblazers.

 

3/10 TC, 21:54:18 system time: Blade and Firefly will leave the Astral Express.

 

 

 

Firefly offered him a tentative smile, her own phone still clutched in her hand. “Looks like we’ll be together on this mission.”

 

“And it looks like I get to take it easy again. A little light hacking and program building is nothing. When will Elio give me a real challenge again?” Silver Wolf complained as she tossed her phone aside. It landed on the cushion next to her with a little bounce.

 

She grabbed her controller and unpaused the game. A small sigh escaped him as Blade reluctantly picked his controller back up. “Last one,” he told her as his character began rapidly losing life once more. Firefly had been doing better than him anyways. Not that that said much.

 

“Sure, sure. You gotta get to your old man pre-mission meditation, or whatever. It’s whatever. I should be warmed up enough for the real competition after this.”

 

Blade didn’t know what competition she was talking about. He thought this was a brand new game. Did they really organize tournaments that fast?

 

It didn’t even take a minute. He made a few half-hearted attempts at some sort of combo attack. Silver Wolf dodged and blocked them and then his character went flying off the screen a final time and the game loudly proclaimed the match over.

 

Blade stood up and left the room. The sound of footsteps hurrying after him alerted him to his companion.

 

Firefly fell into step next to him. “Can I ask—does your script specify which Trailblazer you’ll be escorting alone?”

 

He glanced down at her. Her gaze was focused forward, a small frown on her face. “No, it doesn’t.”

 

“Oh.” She fell quite for a beat before she continued, hesitantly, “Maybe we can choose then? Do you… feel up to escorting Dan Heng? Or would you prefer I do it?”

 

Blade had thought it a foregone conclusion which Trailblazer they would each escort. It was kind of her to offer though. A kindness wasted on him. Imbibitor Lunae was his purpose and he would not relinquish him so easily. “I can manage.”

 

“Okay, good,” she couldn’t quite hide the relief creeping into her voice. “I’ll try to stay with Stelle then. But I promise, if I get Dan Heng, I’ll burn anything that gets close to him to ashes. He’ll be completely safe.”

 

“And Stelle would be safe with me.” If there was anything the two of them could promise, it was destruction. It was almost novel to do it in protection of others for once. He hadn’t protected anyone since the— He cut that thought off abruptly.

 

This was temporary and only for the sake of the script. He would not compromise his goals.

 

“Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate it.” Firefly hurried to clarify, “Not just protecting her—I know we’ll keep them alive—but letting me go with her.”

 

“Of course.”

 

He stopped in front of his room long enough to offer her a nod of farewell and then retreated inside. The door slid shut behind him and he stood motionlessly in place, staring blankly out the view port over his bed.

 

In thirty-eight hours, he would see Imbibitor Lunae again. It had been almost a year since he last saw him on the Loufu. It was the longest span he had gone without hunting down Imbibitor Lunae since the Stellaron Hunters had picked him up off that frozen planet in the wake of Jingliu’s teachings.

 

It should have been his signal to throw all of his growing feelings to the wayside and focus completely on his hunt. Except the script forbade it. His purpose was to keep Imbibitor Lunae alive until they reached the Express.

 

He had to follow the script—it was the only hope at the fulfillment of his many grudges that he had left.

 

Nonetheless, the part of him that was always baying for blood wanted to slide his blade between those ribs and write out the price of their sins in the scarlet that gushed forth. Damn the consequences.

 

There was another part of him though, the part that he was desperately trying to drown out as it surfaced. That part wanted to fall to his knees at Imbibitor Lunae’s feet and beg for a merciful release to his suffering. If Jingliu, for all her lofty words, couldn’t give it to him, then perhaps the one who had helped curse him with his immortality could also take it away.

 

It left him balanced on a tightrope. If he took a step to either side, he would fall. Somehow, he would have to get through this mission without breaking the script to follow his hunt or abandoning his retribution to pursue Imbibitor Lunae’s forgiveness. The barrier of violence had always held him back from making any foolish decisions in the past, but he couldn’t suppress the ghost of his first life with it this time.

 

There was a roiling mass in his core that didn’t feel like his mara. It had been growing slowly inside of him since he had started getting his memories of his first life back. Blade didn’t know what was festering in there, but he knew that he couldn’t let it out. He was a blade with one purpose: to cut down his enemies. That mass of emotions would compromise him if it ever surfaced. He could tell that much.

 

“Of five, three must pay a price,” he muttered the mantra unconsciously to himself. The words were stitched into his torn flesh, holding his shattered body together. Shard Sword appeared in his hand, the heavy weight of it a comfort and reminder. This was his burden. This was his purpose.

 

He could hear her voice, forever echoing in his scars, asking, “Do you remember?”

 

He remembered. He remembered the peace of death, always dangled so tantalizingly in front of him before it was cruelly snatched back. He remembered the way Baiheng had once laughed, head thrown back and delight sloughing off her in waves that infected everyone around her.

 

He didn’t remember. He didn’t remember their grand sin except in broken strokes, but it stained his hands nonetheless, denying him peace forevermore.

 

He pulled Shard Sword against his body. The cold of the metal seeped through his coat. Shard Sword only grew hot when there was blood on it.

 

“Imbibitor Lunae…” he murmured aloud. How much longer would it take for retribution to find them? He was already so tired, but he didn’t get the luxury of resting, not until he died.

 

Why then? Why did it feel like his retribution was only moments from slipping out of his grasp forever?

 

He shouldn’t have stayed on the Loufu after they finished their mission. The invitation he’d received had prompted him to stay longer, drawn in by the imagined promise of Jingliu’s retribution to his continuing failure to deal with Imbibitor Lunae. He’d hoped, foolishly, that she might take this burden off his shoulders and give him a final ending.

 

It hadn’t happened like that.

 

Instead, he’d ventured back out and found himself with the time to track down Baiheng’s reincarnation. It had shaken him in a way that nothing else had since his first encounter with Dan Heng.

 

Perhaps he’d realized what would happen and that was why he hadn’t been planning to do it originally. Or perhaps he had been hoping it would be like meeting Imbibitor Lunae reborn and would fill him with that encompassing injustice again, bringing him back to his hunt with no regrets left.

 

It hadn’t stoked the fires of his rage though. No, meeting Bailu had cracked something in his foundations.

 

He’d known she wouldn’t be Baiheng—that wasn’t how reincarnation worked—but some part of him must have still been hoping she would be Baiheng made young again, with all the past sins that they’d heaped on her head washed away.

 

It had only found disappointment. She had been both so similar looking and so different in temperament that the contrast had made his head spin. He’d been forced to flee the consultation as quickly as he could without rousing her suspicion to keep his mara in check.

 

It had left him with a sizable new addition to the mass of emotions tucked deep into his core.

 

Blade couldn't let it grow any bigger. The mass would burst under its own weight if that kept happening. It needed to stay buried until he had dealt with Imbibitor Lunae. Somehow, he would need to find a way to make it through this mission without setting it free.

 

—

 

Blade was sick of icy planets.

 

The centuries of aimless wandering after his initial resurrection as his memories slowly trickled back to him and then under Jingliu’s tutelage had all taken place on an icy planet. They were not memories he enjoyed reliving. Yet here he was, feeling the cold creep back into his limbs and numb his body.

 

It brought him right back to that planet. Strangely, he had never learned its name. Almost seven centuries had been spent there, and he didn’t know what to call it. It felt fitting for the nameless wanderer he had been while trapped there.

 

Kafka leaned up against the edge of the exit hatch, her usual cheerful mask in place. “Sure you don’t want to bring a heavier coat, Bladie?”

 

Blade shook his head. He’d left his collection of signature coats in his phone’s inventory and was instead in the nondescript black coat that he wore when he didn’t want to be recognized. It was warmer than his normal one, but the chill was already worming through it. Still, it was all he had on hand. His beanie and glove would have to do the rest. He couldn’t wear a second one because it would interfere with his grip on Shard Sword.

 

“It’s fine.”

 

Kafka put a hand to her chest, a fake pout stretching across her face. “And after I went out of my way to make sure you had something warm. I’m hurt.”

 

Kafka was up to something again. “What did you do?”

 

Her phone came out of her pocket and with a couple taps a long, black coat lined with fur appeared in her hands. She gave it a little shake in his direction, like it was some sort of tempting treat. “So distrustful! Maybe I’ll get all these nice, warm coats I special ordered returned for a full refund. They were expensive to get here so fast, you know.”

 

The coat looked stupid. It was slightly poofy and shapeless, and the hood had been trimmed with red fur.

 

It also looked very, very warm.

 

Blade went back up the ramp to get the coat.

 

“I’ll send you the rest. I got you one for each day you’re on Huth,” Kafka informed him smugly as he switched coats.

 

Blade grunted in acknowledgment and stomped back down to the planet’s surface.

 

“Have fun out there,” Kafka called after him. “Try not to traumatize your little Trailblazer too much. You can break his heart, but not his body. Much.”

 

Sometimes, Blade really regretted that he had answered Silver Wolf’s questions after the Loufu. In a resounding failure of judgment and emotional compromise, he had told her a bit about Imbibitor Lunae and their history. Silver Wolf had, of course, immediately run off to gossip with the other Hunters about it. Now he couldn’t get a break from all the comments about Dan Heng.

 

Blade turned away from her, scanning their surroundings as he pointedly ignored her, the weight of Shard Sword tucked up against his side. The icy plain of the glacier looked empty save the distinctive black crystals a good ways away, but the Fragmentum could be deceptive. All it would take was one little pocket dimension and they could be overrun in moments.

 

Not that it would kill him. It would delay him though. While he needed Imbibitor Lunae dead, he didn’t want it to happen in a preventable accident. No, that kill was his final penance; it could not be pawned off onto chance.

 

“Not to worry,” Firefly said and there was the distinctive sound of her engaging her armor. SAM’s modulated voice finished her statement. “We’ll see them both safely to the end.”

 

“I know,” Kafka told her with an indulgent smile clear in her voice. “It wasn’t you I was worried about anyways. You ready to do what you must if Bladie’s mara gets the best of him?”

 

“Of course. I’ll make it quick.”

 

The conviction in her reply was comforting. She wouldn’t hesitate to do what must be done.

 

“Atta girl.” There was the electronic hum of the landing ramp retracting. Blade glanced back in time to catch her lazy wave goodbye. “I’ll see you both on the other side. Say hi to Himeko for me.”

 

He turned away again as their ship lifted back into the air and departed. He wasn’t sure what Kafka’s and Silver Wolf’s scripts looked like this time, but he trusted they were doing what was necessary. He couldn’t help but feel a little apprehensive though. Dan Heng was on this planet with him—the fact of it rang in his very bones, intractable and all-consuming. The bracer strapped to his arm tugged him forward. Close. He was so close—but there would be no Spirit Whisper to hold him back if he lost control.

 

Perhaps it would be fine; the script said they would all come out of this alive. Unfortunately. Their end would not be found on this planet.

 

“I’ll see you in a few hours then,” SAM said as she began to power up her thrusters. “Don’t forget to sleep this time.”

 

Blade nodded to let her know that he had heard her and she leapt into the sky, streaking off like a falling star. He wondered idly what additional task she had to complete. It didn’t really matter, he supposed. He would see her again soon enough.

 

A light jog carried him across the glacier they had landed on. Strangely, despite being an icy planet, there was little snow to be found. It was cold here, but not nearly as cold as that little planet he had briefly stopped on in pursuit of Dan Heng. Yar-something, maybe. The cold there had been like Jingliu’s blade: absolute and devastating.

 

This planet, Huth, was merely freezing. Already, he was losing what little feeling remained in his fingers despite the new coat. He expected the entire trip would be an exercise in the agony of frostbite that wouldn’t take.

 

The discomfort didn’t matter. Even when his body went slack with death, he would never lose his grip on Shard Sword. Jingliu had trained him better than that. The cold couldn’t disarm him nor could it kill him. What threat did that leave? Malaise meant nothing to a blade.

 

The journey across the glacier and down onto the frozen tundra was largely uneventful. He had a couple close-calls with the Fragmentum echoes, but nothing that significantly delayed him.

 

He double-checked that he was at the exact coordinates Elio had specified. The correct numbers glowed back at him from the map Silver Wolf had installed for him, so he stowed his phone back away and turned his attention skyward. There was little else to look at around here.

 

Experiencing time was strange in this system. All of the planets crowded close to their tiny, red sun to huddle in its warmth and, as such, the sun never rose and the sun never set because the planets didn’t rotate.

 

For Blade, that sun was currently a brilliant crescent barely peeking above the horizon. It left him trapped in a permanent state of dusk, the sky a burning sunset on one side and a night sky on the other. Depending on which way they traveled from here, it could either turn into permanent night or permanent day.

 

Each of the additional planets in the system were framed against the stars like blood-stained moons, ranging from threatening giants to palm-sized orbs. Some were full, others mere crescents, and a few were gibbous.

 

One of the ones that was nearly encroaching on the sun, and therefore was a sliver of a crescent, glowed with more than reflected red sunlight. The space that should have been dark was filled with handfuls of lights, like stars poured into miniature ponds and rivers. It was interesting to see such a clear sign of life happening so far away.

 

Blade was pretty sure he’d heard Silver Wolf chattering about some sort of conflict going on between the occupied planets, but the details he knew were sparse. It likely had something to do with the Stellaron. These things always did.

 

His gaze drifted back down to the earth eventually. Fragmentum encroachment was much higher in this area than the glacier they’d been dropped off on, but the branching veins of crystal still had large gaps between them. With enough time, they would completely cover the land.

 

He had seen a planet like that once. It had been one of the easiest Stellaron hunts he had been on. All they had to do was distract the endless waves of monsters and scoop the Stellaron up. There had been no one else left to defend it.

 

He debated the merits of going and picking a fight with whatever echoes he could draw out to pass the time, but it would be better not to draw too much attention to this location prior to the crash. He wouldn’t be free to fight once he had the Trailblazers.

 

That left him with several hours until the crash and nothing to do. For a moment, he considered following Firefly’s advice and sleeping, but napping alone in a frozen wasteland surrounded by Fragmentum was a level of reckless stupidity that even he wouldn’t stoop to.

 

They’d packed tents and proximity alarms for exactly that reason, but he couldn’t guarantee that he would have time to pack it back up before he had to pull the Trailblazers out of their wrecked ship, especially if the Fragmentum’s creatures amassed in the area at some point before their arrival. Losing their supplies would be a terrible way to start this mission.

 

So he couldn’t sleep, but he could rest. Kneeling down upon the permafrost, Blade summoned Shard Sword to rest across his lap. The heavy weight pinned him in place. Letting his eyes close, he focused on the feeling of the heartbeat against his arm. It was still distant, but it was closer than it had been when he landed.

 

He fell into a light meditative trance to the rhythm of that beating heart.

 

—

 

The devastating boom of an explosion pulled him back into awareness. Numb and far too hot, Blade struggled to get back to his feet. There was something heavy on top of his legs, so he scooped it up in his arms on completely auto-pilot.

 

He knew he needed to move, that the sound signaled something he had to do, but he felt sluggish and he couldn’t quite recall what it was.

 

There was a second boom, longer and loud enough to nearly deafen him, as the ground beneath him shook, nearly sending him back to his knees. The noise came from behind him.

 

A ship had crashed down not too far away, leaving a long furrow of torn up earth in its wake. It had impacted with an outcropping of rocks, leaving the nose of it crumpled up like a tin can. Smoke rose from it and something went up in a sudden burst of flames at the back.

 

Already, he could see monsters starting to converge around the crash as they appeared from the surrounding Fragmentum.

 

The bracer on his arm was burning against his skin, tugging him forward with a thready drumbeat.

 

Imbibitor Lunae.

 

Blade broke into a stumbling sprint as his brain finally came back online. Shard Sword slid into place in his hand, steady and unfaltering, as he struggled to get the rest of himself to move.

 

He came to a halt at the door of the ship, the first combatant to reach it owing to his close starting position. There wasn’t an obvious mechanism to force it open. Without any hesitation, he brought Shard Sword down, tearing into the metal plating.

 

It didn’t take long to force his way into the ship, the metal parting under Shard Sword’s cracked edge like butter.

 

Smokey air filled his lungs and tears beaded in the corners of his eyes as he stepped into the ruined ship. Coughing, he pressed his free arm over his face, filtering the air somewhat through his sleeve, as he looked around. Dim green lighting, perhaps this planet’s version of emergency lights, filled the cabin.

 

His eyes were pulled unerringly to a dark shape against the wall.

 

A jolt of something electric went through him at the sight of Imbibitor Lunae. He was slumped forward across the ground, his back up to the wall, returned to his human guise. In his arms lay Stelle. Both of them were unconscious.

 

Blade knelt down on one knee at their side. Something dark was pooling under Imbibitor Lunae’s head, marring his features where it smeared across his face.

 

It was good that he didn’t need to check if they were still alive—the script and the heartbeat against his arm spoke for that—he didn’t have the time. Already, he could hear the monsters screeching outside over the continuing crackle of flames.

 

It was also good that they were so close together. He was able to scoop them both up at once and awkwardly sling them over his shoulder while keeping his grip on Shard Sword. Keeping them there was difficult—the both of them together spilled over his shoulder—but they weighed less than Shard Sword, so it was manageable.

 

Getting back out of the wreck was the real challenge. The monsters that had been approaching as he moved in had set themselves up around the door he had made. He brandished Shard Sword in front of him in warning as he shifted his weight to keep his charges from slipping as he exited the ship.

 

It gave him his first good look at the native species.

 

The Stellaron here had been allowed to run free for too long. He didn’t know what they looked like without the Fragmentum crawling up over them, but now their heads were encased in dark ice in a shape much like a bovine skull. The dark ice danced with the swirling afterimage of stars, as if looking through a viewport on a ship.

 

That same dark ice dripped down their hairy bodies like a cascade of icicles, ending in a strange claw-like cage of ice over cloven hooves.

 

They were fast opponents too.

 

One of them lunged at him in a blinding rush. Blade sliced it in half at the last moment, nearly too slow. He almost overbalanced as he tried to come back to a ready stance, the awkward distribution of weight throwing him off.

 

One of the Trailblazers started to slip. Blade frantically tightened his grip, shifting his weight to shift them back, as another monster came at him.

 

He needed to get out of here. Now.

 

He cut the monster down messily and charged forward, bringing his sword up to cover the Trailblazers, batting away any attacks directed their way. Spears dug into him as he charged forward, but Blade didn’t stop, welcoming the familiar agony. Laughter slowly started to spill out of him, broken up by the bubbling blood escaping his lungs.

 

How imprecise these monsters’ spears were. Imbibitor Lunae had always gotten his heart on his first try. There were four spears in him right now, and not a single one had hit a truly vital point. He swung Shard Sword in a wide arc around him, clearing the space temporarily, and kept going.

 

Breaking through the other side of the encirclement, Blade started to run. Fire dripped down his torso, the blood quickly turning tacky and cold in the freezing air. One of the spears had remained in him and each step he took made an excruciating pain tear through him.

 

He reached down with the hand holding Shard Sword and shifted his grip enough to rip the spear out. A gasp tore out of him along with a final spray of gore and agony. Shard Sword glowed eagerly at the offering splattering up its blade. He would have to disappoint it this time. This was all it would get for now.

 

Using himself as a meat shield had worked though, and neither of the Trailblazers had been hurt. He would heal soon enough. He wouldn’t even get the temporary relief of death first.

 

Something glowed in the sky ahead of him and then SAM came barreling past. The explosive whoosh of flames behind him marked her landing. A second explosion followed quickly. Blade slowed to a stop and looked back. The ship had gone up in a fireball, either on its own or with SAM’s assistance.

 

The Fragmentum monsters were all burning, and SAM tore through the few left standing.

 

It wasn’t over yet though. More creatures started to appear from the corrosion in the vicinity. Blade turned and started to run again. It wasn’t safe to leave the Trailblazers lying around while he joined the battle, not while they were unable to defend themselves. SAM would have to cover their escape alone.

 

He eventually had to stop long enough to adjust the Trailblazers, throwing each of them over a different shoulder and reluctantly dismissing his weapon.

 

He rounded another rocky hill and came across what looked like an abandoned town. There were Fragmentum crystals crawling over one side of it, but the other hadn’t been taken over yet.

 

It would do for a short stop.

 

After sneaking into a building at the edge of the settlement, he laid the Trailblazers out on the stone floor. He dug his phone out of his pocket. Opening Firefly’s contact, he hit call.

 

“SAM,” he said into it as soon as it connected, “Follow my signal. We’re secure for now.” Then he hung up and shoved it back away without waiting for a reply.

 

The Trailblazers remained silent on the floor, with no sign of stirring. That one familiar face, rusted blood still caked in large swathes across it from his head wound, completely captured Blade’s attention.

 

It was strange to see him injured like this, those cold, jade eyes hidden away from the world, Blade wanted to go over and force him awake, to force him to look at him, to force him to act alive. There was an uncomfortable pressure building in him the longer he looked at his unmoving form.

 

He drifted closer to Imbibitor Lunae while he was staring. If he took another step forward, he would be directly over the Vidyadhara. Going still, he stared down at him. He barely even looked like Imbibitor Lunae like this. The human guise was wrong. The lack of horns, the rounded ears; they felt like a half-hearted attempt to evade his fate.

 

His hand clenched painfully at his side, aching for the familiar grip of Shard Sword.

 

“Of five, three must pay a price,” he murmured, clutching desperately at the familiar words in the place of his weapon. He didn’t trust himself with Shard Sword right now, no matter how desperately he wanted to feel that comforting weight. There was an itch of gold deep in his guts.

 

The abominations and those who created them had to be destroyed. Imbibitor Lunae was a criminal. The Xianzhou might think that rebirth and exile were enough to exonerate him, but Blade knew Imbibitor Lunae down to his bones. This was the same Vidyadhara who had committed that crime, memories intact or not.

 

He had to face the consequences of their arrogance.

 

This was Blade’s purpose. It was his punishment and penance for his own role in the Sedition. Their shared past was why it had to be him. The love he had once borne this Vidyadhara could not matter when they had gone against the very tenants they had fought to protect and destroyed one of their friends in the attempt.

 

It couldn’t matter. It was gone. It had died right alongside the craftsman and the first abomination that they had created together.

 

There was still blood on Imbibitor Lunae’s face.

 

Feeling like another person was moving his body, Blade slowly knelt down and gathered the edge of his sleeve. Rust brown flakes broke off Imbibitor Lunae’s forehead under his careful ministration, revealing the flawless skin beneath. Based on the way his hair was matting, the wound must have been above the hairline. Blade took the matted clumps between his gloved fingers and patiently began to rub the blood out of them too.

 

The sound of thrusters engaging outside drew Blade out of his reverie. He shoved himself to his feet, skittering back several steps, and circled around the Trailblazers so that he was between them and the door, just in case. SAM stepped through the door a few moments later.

 

“How are they doing?” she asked as she approached, the metal of her suit clanking heavily against the stone floor.

 

He gestured wordlessly towards them. The answer to that question was as known to her as it was to him.

 

SAM knelt down next to them and presumably ran some sort of scan because she soon reported, “Their vitals are stabilizing quickly. Likely, the concussions will leave them a little disoriented for a while, but they’ll wake up on script. Thank goodness.”

 

Blade hummed in acknowledgment and backed up to stand against the wall, out of the Trailblazers’ sight-line when they awoke.

 

SAM’s shoulders slumped down and she leaned forward over Stelle. One of her hands hovered over her for a moment, and then she pulled back. “They’ll be fine,” she repeated quietly to herself. Her fists clenched at her side.

 

Standing up, she stared down at the two Trailblazers in silence.

 

“It’s my fault,” she said abruptly.

 

Blade looked at her, waiting for her to continue.

 

“The script had me engaging a group of monsters at a specific location. I thought it was to keep them out of the way so you could get them out of their crash safely, but… I saw them go down. It was my fault. There wouldn’t have been so many monsters on alert without me. I was a fool. I shouldn’t have followed the script like that. Stupid.”

 

Annoyance pricked beneath Blade’s skin. She never wanted to follow her scripts, but they were inevitability. She knew this very well from all the times she’d tried to defy them in the past. Blade had watched her futile struggle too many times now.

 

“The ship was destined to go down,” Blade said shortly. “You made sure it happened somewhere we could reach them. Stop agonizing.”

 

Destiny was not something that could be changed.

 

“We don’t know that! They could have gone the whole way by themselves!” The fire on her suit flared up with her agitation.

 

Blade was unmoved. “We’re here for a reason. If they didn’t go down on the ship, they would have lost against the Stellaron without us.”

 

Elio never sent them somewhere that they weren’t needed. It wasn’t always obvious why, especially since they never saw what would have happened without them, but Blade trusted that much.

 

“Well, we’ll never know now. It’s too late.” Blade was sure her voice would have been filled with bitterness if it wasn’t being filtered through SAM’s modulators.

 

All fell silent save the wind rushing past outside.

 

Blade could almost understand her attempts to defy fate, considering her situation, but he had spent centuries wandering alone only to be found right before Imbibitor Lunae had his bracer returned to him. He knew very well what inevitability looked like. Elio’s destiny at least offered him hope. It was something he could dedicate the remains of his life to without any hesitation.

 

What he couldn’t understand was this in-between place Firefly existed in. She was loyal to the Stellaron Hunters, but she never wanted to follow the scripts. She wanted her promised life, but she was willing to sacrifice her missions for other goals she picked up on a whim.

 

Blade knew what having a mission that you didn’t want to fulfill felt like. His purpose as Imbibitor Lunae’s retribution tore at the remaining scraps of the craftsman he had once been. It was still his purpose. It had to be fulfilled.

 

So why did she fight so hard against the inevitable?

 

Blade’s gaze was drawn back to Imbibitor Lunae like a magnet finding north. He pressed himself further back against the wall and crossed his arms. The hidden bracer wrapped around his upper arm burned against his skin, more noticeable than ever due to the cold it juxtaposed. He shifted his grip slightly to grasp it through his coat, focusing on the faint heartbeat he could feel through it.

 

Imbibitor Lunae would be fine. This wasn’t the end yet.

 

The silence stretched an indeterminable while longer before there was finally a change. Stelle made a small noise of discomfort and rolled over onto her side. SAM immediately darted forward, her knees skidding with a painful screech over the floor as she dropped down next to Stelle, but paused before she could make contact.

 

For a second, her hand hovered there, an inch away from skin, and then she pulled her hand back slowly.

 

“Stelle?” she asked instead, “Are you back with us?”

 

“Firefly? Am I dreaming?” Stelle mumbled, groggy and slurred, just barely loud enough for Blade to overhear. Stelle’s hand lifted up and grabbed SAM’s arm. SAM went absolutely still. The lights on her suit flared up brightly.

 

There was a beat of silence before SAM replied, something slightly off in her modulated voice, “No, we aren’t on Penacony anymore. You’re awake. We pulled you out of the wreckage of your ship.”

 

“Wreck—?” Stelle blinked several times before the words seemed to connect. “My friends!” Stelle shot to her feet so fast she tumbled forward. SAM caught her before she could hit her head again.

 

“Dan Heng is alright. He’s right here, see.” SAM turned her to see Imbibitor Lunae, laid out on the ground next to her.

 

Stelle dropped back to her knees at Imbibitor Lunae’s side, poking a finger at his face several times. Blade’s grip went painfully tight on himself. Some long dead part of him wanted to snap at her to give him some space. Imbibitor Lunae hated people touching him without permission.

 

Apparently satisfied with her meager inspection, Stelle turned back to SAM. “What about Culseva? Where is he?”

 

SAM’s head canted up the slightest fraction in Blade’s direction. Blade shook his head. He hadn’t even considered searching for other survivors. They hadn’t been in the script.

 

“Was he on the ship with you?” At Stelle’s nod, her head shook. “I’m sorry, he didn’t make it.”

 

“No,” Stelle denied immediately. “No, that can’t be…” she trailed off, a devastated look in her eyes. “He said it would be dangerous, but…”

 

“My condolences,” SAM offered. Likely, she was trying for comforting, but the voice modulator stripped her words of any real gentleness.

 

Stelle seemed to hear it anyways. She straightened up slightly from her defeated slump and nodded once, her body wobbling forward with the movement. Her eyes went wide as she looked up and finally noticed him standing by the wall.

 

“Oh, hello, Blade.” She waved once. Her attention turned back to Imbibitor Lunae.

 

Several moments later, she looked back up at him and then rapidly back to Imbibitor Lunae. “Wait… Are you going to do something to Dan Heng when he wakes up?” she asked bluntly.

 

Blade shook his head. “It’s not in the script.”

 

“Blade pulled both of you out of the wreckage,” SAM loyally offered.

 

She needn’t have bothered. Stelle was right to doubt his intentions. Even now, he was having trouble holding himself at this distance. Everything in him wanted to get closer; to make those cold jade eyes gasp open, to press blade into flesh, to feel the heartbeat transferred through the bracer cupped in the palm of his hand for its final beats.

 

He hated how still Imbibitor Lunae was.

 

“Oh. Thanks,” Stelle offered absently. Her face was scrunching up as she struggled to connect some thought. “Was— Uhh, Was— Fucking hell, I just— Culseva! Was Culseva already…?”

 

Blade shook his head. “The pilot’s cabin collapsed completely,” he said, taking a guess at where this additional passenger would have been. It was perhaps a slight exaggeration, but not by much. It had been pretty crumpled.

 

That hurt look was back in her eyes for a moment, before it was replaced by a blazing determination. “Then we’ll finish the mission for him.”

 

“We’ll help,” SAM said and Stelle turned away from Blade to look at her.

 

“Thank you. But what about, uhh. What about your script?”

 

“Ah, well…” There was something slightly amusing about hearing Firefly’s stumbling in SAM’s voice. “That’s actually part of the script, but I would have found a way to help you even if it wasn’t,” she was quick to reassure.

 

Stelle puffed up, her hands coming to her hips despite her still kneeling on the ground, half twisted around to look at SAM. “Heh, it’s my mad rizz stats. Everyone wants to help me. Or have me help them. Or something. Yeah.”

 

They were saved from coming up with a response to that by Imbibitor Lunae finally stirring.

 

Blade’s breath caught in his chest, his attention snapping firmly to the small toss of Imbibitor Lunae’s head and the way his face scrunched up in discomfort.

 

Something in his core roared for him to move. What he would do, he didn’t know, but he needed to do it. The step forward he took before he caught himself was completely involuntary. He dug his fingers into the bracer again, the other hand digging into his arm, until they screamed for relief.

 

He didn’t grant it. The pain and the foreign heartbeat against his palm were the only things grounding him.

 

Imbibitor Lunae’s eyes blinked open. Unerringly, they turned towards Blade. For a second that stretched into an eternity, jade met crimson. Their hearts beat in perfect sync.

 

Then Imbibitor Lunae’s heartbeat stuttered and took off into a gallop. He gasped and scrambled to his feet, Cloud Piercer appearing in his hands. Its blade caught the faint light and the character on the moulding flashed as he turned it towards Blade.

 

A broken fragment of memory caught him in its grip. He remembered the precision of his engraving tools as he finalized the details of Cloud Piercer. He remembered the way he carelessly nicked himself on the edge of the blade due to his absolute focus on working the character for “Dan” into the jade-steel. He’d blown his budget for the decade on that singular weapon. He couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

 

He hadn't even noticed the injury until after he had finished. He had thought it funny at the time that the first blood to grace it had been his own.

 

It seemed more prophetic now.

 

“You—!” Imbibitor Lunae exclaimed and then tilted alarmingly to the side, his face going a terrible shade of white.

 

Blade couldn’t move. If he moved, he didn’t know what he would do. Instead, he watched as SAM caught Imbibitor Lunae before he crumpled to the ground. One of his hands came up to his head and he squinted in clear pain as he kept his attention on Blade, his spear still held out threateningly in front of him despite how it wavered.

 

That faint falter said more about Imbibitor Lunae’s current state than any amount of grimacing could.

 

“Keep back,” Imbibitor Lunae ordered.

 

“Woah, they’re chill, Dan Heng. You’re chill, right?” Stelle asked him as she stumbled up to her feet as well. She grabbed onto SAM’s outstretched arm to steady herself. “Wow. Your arm is, like, really solid.” She started poking at the plates of SAM’s carapace.

 

Cloud Piercer stayed exactly where it was even as Imbibitor Lunae turned his head enough to see Stelle while keeping Blade in his field of view. His eyes only left Blade for a fraction of a second, but Blade felt the loss stab through him.

 

He shifted his weight and Imbibitor Lunae stiffened up as his attention snapped back onto Blade. Dark satisfaction welled up in him like blood from a seeping wound. Imbibitor Lunae would not be permitted to forget him again.

 

“We are not here to hurt you,” SAM assured. “We’re here to help this time. Let’s all calm down, and I can pass out the medication I have to help with the concussions.”

 

Her steadying hands shifted their grip somewhat so that she could hold Imbibitor Lunae back. It was unnecessary of her. Imbibitor Lunae had never initiated their past conflicts. He had always fought defensively until he got the opportunity for a kill. Then he had descended mercilessly.

 

The memory sent a thrill down Blade’s spine.

 

The Azure Dragon had always been absolute in battle. Armies had drowned before him once.

 

Something golden stirred in Blade’s core. At the familiar fluttering of new sprouts, Blade finally moved his gaze away from Imbibitor Lunae, focusing instead on SAM behind him. He let memories of floods fall away behind blazing infernos. The sprouts didn’t disappear, but their growth stopped. It would do for now.

 

He watched SAM as she pulled her phone out and retrieved the promised medication for the Trailblazers.

 

“Help in what way?” Imbibitor Lunae asked suspiciously after thoroughly examining the pill he was given. Stelle had swallowed hers immediately.

 

“We will see you both safely to the Stellaron and then back onto the Express.” SAM fell silent for a moment before continuing, “In the spirit of full honesty, I should let you know that you’ll both be separated on the way for a bit. Could you perhaps share the location now so that we all know it?”

 

Imbibitor Lunae’s eyes narrowed slightly. It threw Blade off balance to see. This new Imbibitor Lunae wore his emotions on his face so openly. They were muted compared to most people, but it was the equivalent of shouting them across the room in comparison to Dan Feng. “Me and Stelle already know.”

 

“Yeah, it’s that mountain with a weird carving on the side,” Stelle volunteered proudly.

 

Imbibitor Lunae’s eyes closed and he took a deep breath. “Don’t— No, what’s the point…” he muttered, before going back to regular volume, “Yes, that’s our destination.”

 

SAM nodded and a few moments later Blade felt his phone buzz once in his pocket. “I have the coordinates and a few possible routes we can take depending on where Fragmentum presence proves weakest.”

 

“Already?” Stelle asked with surprise. “Man, mechas really can do anything. Firefly, you should do a cool mecha pose.”

 

SAM immediately fell into a half crouch, one arm held up in front of her, palm forward, and the other bent at her chest. “Like this?”

 

“Yes! Yes!” Stelle whipped out her phone and took several selfies with SAM. “Oh, those are going directly on March’s picture wall,” she said to herself.

 

Imbibitor Lunae cleared his throat loudly, drawing the girls’ attention back to himself. “The last thing I remember was being on a ship. What exactly happened?”

 

Stelle’s face fell. “We went down. I remember Culseva saying there was something weird ahead. Then I woke up here.”

 

Surprise briefly flitted across Imbibitor Lunae’s face before it went blank again. “Is Mr. Culseva…?”

 

Stelle’s face scrunched up in thought. Clearly, her concussion was still having affects.

 

SAM answered for her. “He didn’t make it out of the crash.”

 

Imbibitor Lunae’s shoulders slumped briefly before they straightened back up as resigned determination filled his expression. “I see. Then we’ll finish his mission for him.”

 

“We will,” Stelle agreed.

 

It was likely a very emotionally charged moment and deserved some time to sit. Unfortunately, Blade couldn’t forget that they were in a town infected with Fragmentum.

 

“We should get moving. We’ve already lingered too long,” he told them and made his way over to the door. The bracer beat a frantic rhythm against his arm, urging him to turn back around. He tried to let the sensation fade into the various aches that always plagued him. The mission needed to be his priority right now, not Imbibitor Lunae.

 

“He’s right. We are still too close to the Fragmentum here,” SAM told them as Blade peered out of the house. The street was still quiet, but it felt almost too quiet. This wouldn’t hold. “Please stick close to us and let us take care of the brunt of the fighting while you continue to recover.”

 

“I can fight,” Stelle complained. There were several footsteps approaching from behind him, so Blade slipped out onto the street. The chill became worse once he left the building’s shelter and the wind was able to reach him again. Kafka’s coat was doing noticeably less well now that it had several holes pierced through it.

 

He called Shard Sword back to his hand to ensure that he wouldn’t fumble it with frozen fingers later. It was always better to freeze them in place around his weapon.

 

“—both recovering from a concussion,” SAM was saying as they joined him on the street. “Some simple Fragmentum monsters are not worth the risk of permanent brain damage.”

 

“We will hang back,” Imbibitor Lunae assured her, “but if we are attacked, we will not hesitate to engage.” Blade could feel eyes burning into the back of his head with the words.

 

“Acceptable,” SAM agreed. “I will scout for somewhere we can rest nearby. Please stick close to Blade. He can reach me if something goes wrong.”

 

He turned back around in time to watch her blast up into the sky and streak off like a comet. Then he was alone with the two Trailblazers again.

 

Stelle watched SAM fly away, a disappointed look on her face. Imbibitor Lunae continued to watch him. Blade couldn’t help looking back for a moment. Imbibitor Lunae’s eyes had changed. The wariness was still present, but the fear had morphed into a kind of curious confusion. Cloud Piercer hadn’t been dismissed, but it rested up against Imbibitor Lunae’s shoulder in a very loose ready stance.

 

Imbibitor Lunae cocked his head to the side the slightest fraction in question. Blade looked away.

 

Wordlessly, he led them out of the town. Footsteps pattered against the paved stone behind him. One of them sped up, prompting the other set to follow. Stelle appeared at his side a few moments later.

 

“So, you’re done trying to kill Dan Heng then?”

 

Blade glanced over at her. Her face was set back in its resting blank state as she stared up at him, adding an element of intimidation to her question. It was too bad that intimidation didn’t work on him anymore. No one came close to Jingliu, and he was immune to it by the end of their time together.

 

He went back to scanning the path forward. There was no answer that he could give Stelle when he didn’t know the answer to that question himself.

 

Imbibitor Lunae inserted himself between them, edging Stelle back away from Blade. “Stelle,” he muttered, clearly trying to be quiet enough that Blade couldn’t hear him. It was unfortunate then that Blade had always had very sharp hearing and it was eerily silent out here. “Don’t provoke him. You know what mara is like.”

 

Stelle let out a dramatic sigh and replied with no attempt at keeping her voice down. “Fine, fine. I’ll stop. For now.”

 

“Stelle—“ he said, exasperated, before clearly giving up the attempt at scolding her. “Never mind. Please see that you do.”

 

Blade let it all pass without contributing. They were right to be wary of him. Whatever human had once worn this flesh had passed on centuries ago. What was left was a abomination threaded so thoroughly through with mara that it was impressive that he had any lucid moments left at all.

 

No, all that was left in this shell now was hatred and the Abundance’s curse. They would be wise to keep their distance.