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They wake up.
The world around them is pitch black. Not the darkness of the Dark World, still letting in enough light for shadows to form into entities; not the darkness of the Roaring, either, violent and overwhelming. It's a still kind of darkness, a rare release.
They savor it, closing their eyes and laying their head on the ground. This sort of peace is rare, and having their body fully in their control is rarer still. They know it won't last long, anyway.
"I knew I shouldn't have listened to you," A voice hisses, the same as Kris' own. Kris sighs, throwing a hand over their face. They wish it could wait a little longer before yelling at them, but they already knew that was a pointless hope.
"Are you seriously not going to look at me?" It's indignant. Yes, Kris thinks but does not bother to say. They're not in the mood for this right now. Frankly, they'd rather it just leave them alone to lay here for a while before it butts in like it always does, always getting in the way of Kris' life. It lives in their chest, does it have to act like this even when its finally out?
"Fine. Next time, I'm taking full control." It sounds final, like Kris' thoughts don't even matter anymore, that their body is its to use as they please. Kris' head finally shoots up, and they grab onto its wrist as it turns away.
"No Noelle." They bite out at the being wearing their own face.
It looks at them, and then deliberately attempts to tug away. Kris just seizes on harder, tight enough that it must hurt.
"After messing up this badly, do you really think I'm going to listen again? I let you do whatever you wanted and look where we ended up!"
"Doesn't matter." Kris responds, squeezing tighter.
"Doesn't—Susie and Ralsei got crushed to death before our eyes, and you say it doesn't matter?!" It turns towards them, and Kris isn't surprised to see that it's crying. It gets emotional so easily. It's easier to think about that, at least, than think about the way Susie had raised her ax to fight till the end to protect them, refusing to show her fear, or how Ralsei had begged them to run as he'd lay there on the ground, legs already dissolved into dust.
"Doesn't." They confirm anyway.
"Then it doesn't matter what happens to Noelle either." It sounds angry, now, and Kris just feels angry in return.
"No. Hurting. Her." They squeeze in emphasis with each word.
Its mouth flattens into a line, and Kris knows this is going to become an argument.
"Even if she's the key to solving all of this? Just a little bit of strength and everyone can be saved?"
"She isn't," they say, more confidently than they believe. It's easy for it to tell that they're lying after so long, though, but they still refuse to show it so easily.
"You're just biased. You feel too bad hurting your precious Noelle, so you don't care that everyone else is dying over and over just because you keep getting in the way of what needs to be done." It doesn't seem to care about its wrist, anymore, looking over Kris in anger.
"You're biased." They respond, shaking its wrist to emphasize their point.
It turns away, caught, then looks back. "She killed Ralsei! Again and again! She keeps messing up our plans! So what if she has to suffer a little? With all the suffering she's made everyone deal with, it's what she owes!"
"I don't care!" They respond, angrier now that it's admitted to their point.
"Oh, of course you don't care. It's just Ralsei. It's just a darkner. Who cares, when you were ready to kill them all for your precious plan and your precious Dess, right?" It knows they feel like they've won a point, and so it hits back. Low blows against low blows.
"Shut. Up. No. Noelle." They dig their nails into its skin, hard enough to draw blood, and it hisses but doesn't draw back.
"You shut up, and stop getting in my way! I don't care if you don't care if everyone dies, but I do! I'm not going to sit here and watch it over and over when we can stop it!" It properly shouts, now. It grabs onto Kris' shirt collar, staring them right in the eyes, red against red.
"Then stop watching! Get out of here! It's my world! It's my body!" Kris pushes them away and stands up, shaking. It's only when their anger overpowers their sense that they can push out words without thinking, staring defiantly into the eyes of the creature that had gotten in their way again and again. They'd had this argument over and over, and it never goes anywhere. They still relish the words, the feeling of the sounds forcing themselves past their lips by their choice, no one else's.
The Soul stares at them, for a moment. It's not an expression Kris can read. It's not one that they've ever made before, blank-faced as they usually stay, nor one that the ever-expressive Soul has ever worn. It prickles, turns Kris' rightful anger into a strange sense of discomfort, the lump firmly lodging itself back in their throat.
Then it smiles.
Kris has seen it smile before, but never like this. It's always bright, and yet the coldness of its expression and the way it doesn't reach its eyes are unmistakable. The sense of wrongness only intensifies.
"You know what, Kris? That's a good idea."
They freeze. Suddenly they feel what all the darkners must've felt when it had turned Noelle into a weapon: the ice crawling through their lungs, holding them in place, and the inescapable coldness spreading to the tips of their fingers. Their body feels like its weighed down by a thousand rocks. It needs to be told what has to be done. Someone needs to decide for it. No one will.
"You want it so badly, so who am I to deny you?" Kris just stares at it, breathing in and out, frozen. The fire has left them and entered it, like so many things it has taken for its own. "Why should I stay? This isn't my world." It's yours. "I can go back and live a normal life whenever I want! It's not my fault that the world is dying." It's yours.. "We've tried over and over and never succeeded, because you keep fighting me when I try to change things! And if you're so certain that you want to handle it, then go ahead! It's not my body to be using, right?" It's yours.
The ice is gone too, and now all that is left is an utter numbness. They have nothing else to face the rejection with. It has thrown everything back into their face: their world, their body, their responsibility—because it's true, it was their stupid actions that caused this all to happen in the first place. And even still, they have been given no words to respond to it. And it still isn't done.
It laughs, ragged and harsh. Kris is reminded of the way it smiled, a grim satisfaction, when it had reset after the first failure after it had frozen everything around it: the sickness they had felt as they watched it, the Angel who'd relived the same week to save a world to which it didn't belong, smile at the corruption of a friend and the loss of another. They had felt the ice then, too, but not the numbness. Perhaps because the numbness had found a home in it instead.
They had felt certain, then, that something had changed in it, that there was no way to go backwards from then on. No matter how many times they reset the world. And yet the grief had settled within them anyway, and the grief was cold, and they had wished desperately that there was a way to bring it back to how it all had been.
But wishing that was what had brought them to this point in the first place, wasn't it?
"It doesn't matter, right, Kris?" Its tone is fully mocking, now, the tears still glistening on its cheeks. "If Susie and Ralsei die early, painfully, it's just another try. Even if we're stuck here forever, it doesn't really matter as long as we don't mess up your precious plans. I hope you have fun resetting by yourself: I'm sure you can do it! Because it's your body, and I'm just the parasite who's been leeching off of you and messing everything up, right?!"
Its tone rises towards the end, tears budding up in its eyes again. That's what finally unglues Kris' mouth: the familiarity of it, the reminder that the Soul is still the Soul, annoying and a crybaby and too kind for its own good.
"Don't." Their mouth closes: they force it open, somehow. It has already learned to obey another master. "Don't say that. I didn't." They try again. "I d-didn't..."
"You didn't mean it?" Cold, cold, suddenly its voice is just cold and tired and numb. "Then why do you keep saying it? I'm so tired of this. We keep fighting and nothing happens and if you'd just not messed up in the first place we wouldn't be stuck here. It's your fault, so why do I have to deal with it? Why do you have to complain so much when it's your actions causing all of this?"
It wouldn't have said that, earlier. Even when it'd found out the whole, awful plan, it'd tried to stay sympathetic. Kris had just been manipulated, it'd reassured. They'd fix this.
But even then, those words had been fake. Was it really a surprise it was fraying away now? It shouldn't have been, but the words still stung.
"Don't go. I'm." They don't want to say it, but they're at fault. They're at fault for this whole mess, and they're the reason it can't live a normal life. Why no one can live a normal life, because they all keep dying. Kris had gotten too cocky, believed in words they shouldn't have, and they'd messed everything up. "I'm sorry."
It tastes like gravel in their mouth, but it must work, the way its anger properly gives way to sorrow. Kris just watches helplessly as it cries, their own face contorting into sobs, and they feel a flash of jealousy that it gets to do that when they don't. Even though they kind of feel like tears should be overflowing too, they're stuck deep inside, and all they get to do is watch their reflection until it finally composes itself.
It always takes things from them.
"I'm sorry too, Kris. I shouldn't have lashed out. I got too mad." The shame is thick in its voice. "Don't worry. I won't leave. It's not like I even remember what's waiting for me, so what's the point? I'll just wait until I get banished away and leave you alone." It laughs, self-deprecating.
Kris wants to scream at it. The reason it wears Kris' face even in this place between worlds, why it has no name of its own, is just because it gave it all up. Every time, it has the choice to leave and return to whatever it was, and every time, it kills whatever it had been before and narrows itself down to just a heart, no memories embedded in its skin. It traps itself as thoroughly as Kris has trapped here, two souls pressed together too tightly for comfort.
It could leave. It could leave, and remember, whenever it wanted. And they both know the world intends it to.
But unable to push their mouth open, Kris digs their nails into their skin, and wishes it was its nails instead. One body is too cramped for two people, but the two of them have already become half-shadow, and now this body is too loose for them to inhabit alone. Suddenly the act of existing as a single entity is impossible, now that they have pushed and prodded and folded themselves away to cram themselves in the same space. And the idea that it can regain its shape is absurd, but the terror of it drowns out any absurdity, the fear that one day the soul will leave and be restored and Kris will be left half-person in this body grown too large for them alone.
They can't find the words to say it, not just yet. So instead, they force a hand away from their skin, the same skin that it so carefully patches up after each battle, and the same skin it dug into last time they fought, telling Kris that they were the problem with everything, that it'd have been better if they were never born.
Kris had angrily responded that at least they'd have been missed a little bit, unlike the human who'd vanished away into another world and didn't have anything strong enough to keep them away. They'd relished the way the Soul's face had folded in on itself, before the sick satisfaction had hollowed itself out and they'd just felt awful inside, the truth of its words digging deep inside them.
They hold their hand out, same as they did that day, and the Soul takes it. Their violence has been torn out of each other, and now all that is left is this. And the violence will come back, as long as this loop continues: but even as the loop stays the same, they'll just get worse and worse. And they will never get better. Kris doesn't doubt this in the slightest.
But just because that's true doesn't erase the gentleness with which the Soul leans down to brush its lips across Kris' hand, or the way a smile breaks along Kris' own for just a moment before they hide it. Back when they'd met, they could never have done this. All Kris had was the anger, and no gentleness to come after: just as the Soul had taken so many things, it had given them this.
And though Kris knows that this closeness is probably poison, they also don't really mind. Because the more they lose, the more the closeness is all they can cling to, to make them back whole.
They sit together, in the silent dark, and Kris leans their head on the Soul and hears its heart beating. Their heart, near them, where it belongs. An existence they cannot live without, that they will never be whole without again.
They don't know if they feel sick or not. Or maybe they do, but they choose not to think about it.
It's easier, when they don't.