Path of the Extra

Before he could finish what he had begun to say, a sudden sound broke through the tunnel entrance, one eerily similar to a metal can rolling across stone, and every head snapped toward it at once, alarm flooding each of their expressions.

”Lioren...”

”I do not know,” he responded to Azriel, his eyes never leaving the darkness ahead.

The sound persisted, continuous and unplaceable, its source still hidden, and it kept every one of them on edge with weapons drawn. Azriel held his gun in one hand and his katana in the other, the insufferable feather resuming its perch in the air above him.

”What is that sound?” Yelena asked. ”Is it the Monarch? But why would it be making a noise like tha-”

”It is not the Monarch. The creature fell asleep, quite suddenly, while I had it pinned beneath my unique skill.”

”Huh? But how? What exactly does your unique skill do, to put something like that to sleep?” Lumine asked.

”You speak too much,” Lioren replied, and Lumine’s face soured instantly in response.

Was it just him, or was Lioren being especially harsh with him always?

It was only then that they saw it clearly. An actual metal can, rolling out from the darkness at last, coming to a stop directly before them.

Everyone stared at it, confusion and apprehension mingling in equal measure across every face.

Azriel’s eyes had grown heavier by the moment, and he remained fixed on one knee, unable to summon the strength to rise.

’...I cannot hold on much longer.’

’My body keeps growing weaker.’

’My energy is all but gone now.’

’The more mana I draw upon, even simply to sustain my armor and weapons, exacts a toll I can barely afford.’

’...It hurts. Even with [Soul Crucible], I have known pain before, but this is different somehow.’

’It is as though I had forgotten what true pain felt like, and now, all at once, I remember.’

’I hate it.’

’My body feels as though it is slowly being set alight, the heat climbing by degrees with every passing second.’

’And yet somehow I feel cold as well. Colder, and colder still.’

’Why does none of this make any sense?

’It is unbearably irritating.’

’I hate this.’

’...I hate pain.’

He looked at the can, and a distinct and heavy unease settled over him.

’It is filled with mana.’

Azriel glanced toward Lioren, and their eyes locked. Lioren stared back at him without moving, without the faintest shift in his expression. Then, without uttering a single sound, his lips moved, forming three silent words.

I...

...cannot...

move.

”...?”

Azriel’s brow furrowed, and in that very instant Celestina reacted, her voice tearing through the air.

”Watch out!”

”Wait, you a-”

She moved before anyone else could so much as react. Lioren could only stand there, silent and frozen, as Celestina threw herself in front of Azriel and wrapped her arms tightly around him. Azriel had no chance to do anything but sit there in stunned surprise, his arms pinned uselessly at his sides beneath the force of her hold. Then the can detonated. A blinding white flash tore outward and swallowed everything within its reach, forcing Azriel’s eyes shut on pure instinct as a shockwave slammed into all of them at once. Balance abandoned every one of them entirely. The cliff itself seemed to shudder beneath their feet, and they staggered dangerously close to its very edge, Celestina absorbing the worst of the blast with her own body shielding his.

”Ugh!”

Azriel tried to force his eyes open, but the pain proved far too severe. Beside his ear, he heard Celestina groan in agony, while a shrill and insufferable ringing consumed his hearing entirely, deafening him almost completely.

’A... flash grenade?’ Azriel thought, the realization arriving with a question still tangled inside it.

Still stupefied, Azriel simply lay there, every one of his senses thrown into complete disarray, while Celestina kept him locked securely within her arms. Gradually, he became aware that the wind was growing quieter. Quieter still. And then, as though some strange and inexplicable phenomenon had taken hold of the world around them, an eerie silence fell over everything entirely, as though sound itself had ceased to exist.

It frightened him.

So Azriel parted his lips first, and he spoke, his voice nothing more than a hoarse and parched whisper.

”Cele... stina?”

The moment he spoke her name, he felt her body stir.

”Mhm...”

’She must have lost consciousness,’ he thought.

Drawing on considerable mental effort, Azriel pried his eyes open by slow degrees, his vision swimming and blurred until repeated blinking finally brought it into focus. Then his eyes widened as the reality of their surroundings struck him all at once.

”Celestina!”

He called out to her quickly, feeling her stir again beneath him. Regrettably, Azriel possessed quite literally no strength left to pry her off, her head resting against his shoulder, her grip somehow deadly strong even in complete unconsciousness.

”Hey, wake up!”

”Mhm... w-what... five more minutes...”

”Celestina, it is me, wake up!”

”...!”

Her head finally lifted, her eyes flying open wide with alarm.

”Wh- Azriel! Are you all right!? What happened, we, we were hit by that flash and I-”

”I am fine.” Azriel cut her off quickly and gestured for her to look around. Celestina slowly rose, and Azriel followed once she had climbed off him.

”We... we are back in the maze?” Celestina whispered, baffled.

Azriel nodded, still somewhat dazed.

Somehow, impossibly, they had returned to the same familiar tunnels, torches burning steadily along the walls.

Azriel glanced at Celestina. Fortunately, it seemed the flash grenade had not been especially harmful in itself, designed more to blind and disorient them with its shockwave than to cause any lasting damage, though the back of her armor had cracked from the impact and was already steadily repairing itself.

”Did the grenade teleport us back here?” Celestina asked, the question directed more at herself than at him, though Azriel answered regardless.

”I do not think so. Seconds before it went off, Lioren mouthed to me that he could not move, and clearly could not speak either, as though someone had restrained him.”

Celestina’s head turned to him immediately.

”But who- ah.” She cut herself off, the answer arriving before she had even finished the question.

”It is the Immortal Eyepatch!”

She said it with conviction, certain of herself, while Azriel merely tilted his head.

”How would you know that?”

Celestina leaned closer, her expression turning serious.

”Lumine and Yelena overheard Caleus speaking with Anastasia. He mentioned bringing a High Commander here specifically to eliminate Jasmine. And honestly, I already had a hunch. Who better suited for the task to kill all of us than that man, given the history of bad blood between him and Jasmine?”

’So, Caleus made a deal with the Supreme Leader... but isn’t it contradictory for him to get Pierre’s help when Caleus wants Jasmine alive, but Pierre wants her dead?’

”...Well, that would make sense. He must have restrained Lioren somehow, likely with a spell, and probably acquired the flash grenade through Caleus.”

To Azriel’s knowledge, this world had no native concept of flash grenades. They were Mana Artifacts, born of an entirely different world altogether. Their world.

’How did Pierre grow strong enough to land a spell on Lioren, and have it actually take hold? No. There is likely something else at work here entirely.’

”There is no point dwelling on it now,” Celestina said, her voice softening. ”Let us deal with one thing at a time.”

She rose to her feet and extended a hand toward him. Azriel hesitated only briefly before taking it, allowing her to pull him upright before draping his arm over her shoulders for support.

”Thank you,” Azriel murmured, then let out a breathless laugh. ”I imagine this is rather awkward. I left... you in chains, and now, after so... little time apart, we find ourselves back... together again, and you are the one... holding me up. All while you have every... right to be furious with me.”

Celestina turned her head toward him and pressed her lips together.

”As you said to Lioren yourself, you placed me in an unbearable position with Jasmine. Had she woken before I reached you, I do not know what I would have done. I wanted to strike you, or at the very least pinch you, the moment I laid eyes on you again. But looking at you then, and now, and everything that has happened since you left me back alone with her, I think I was wrong as well. Telling you not to give up, the way I did, without fully understanding what you were actually going through. That was not fair of me to say.”

Azriel blinked, caught somewhere between confusion and genuine surprise, though the lightheadedness threading through him made it difficult to hold onto either feeling for long.

”...What do you mean?”

’Time travel gave her a new perspective, I suppose?’

She sighed.

”Honestly, with everything you said before you left, it was difficult not to assume you had simply lost your mind entirely to the mana core syndrome, that you were rambling without any grounding in reality. But now I am slowly beginning to understand that you were not lying. As absurd as that sounds to admit.”

”I... see.”

”I-I am not saying I understand everything, obviously. I clearly do not. But I think we need to finally have a real and proper conversation once we are out of this Colosseum. About everything. About the gods. About you.” Her voice dropped quieter.

”...About... scars.”

Azriel could not help the weak smile that pulled at his lips.

”Sure. Once we get out, if we... I get out, I will tell you... everything you want to know.”

Celestina’s eyes widened slightly at his words before hardening into something far more resolute.

”We will both get out alive. I will make certain of it. And after that, I promise you, I will find a way to cure you.”

Azriel let out a soft chuckle while sounding worried.

”It seems we were separated from the others. Lioren will be fine, but I am worried about Jasmine... and Yelena and Lumine, of course. We should... find them.”

Celestina’s eyes then held the same worry as she nodded gently.

”You are right. We should search for them as quickly as possible. If the Immortal Eyepatch is here, and Jasmine is still unconscious...” Celestina bit her lip.

”I do not want to imagine what might happen.”

”You do have to tell me one thing before that, though.”

”Which is?” Celestina asked, curiosity plain in her voice.

”How did you manage... to travel through time?”

”Ah... well.” She seemed to be turning something over carefully, searching for the right words. ”It was not me. Nor was it Yelena. It was Lumine.”

”What?” Azriel could not help the disbelief in his voice. ”How?”

Celestina reached into her ring and drew out a sheet of paper, holding it up for him to read, her tone carrying a quiet and sympathetic weight.

”Each time he died, he traveled back from the future to the exact moment he found me chained and Jasmine unconscious. Apparently, it was all thanks to some skill called [Redo].”

”...Huh.”

For a moment, Azriel felt as though he had been struck clean out of his own body. He stared down at the paper without absorbing a single word of it, as though the letters had ceased to mean anything at all. It was what Celestina had just said, landing with such force that he could only remain frozen there, muttering through the daze that had settled over him.

”He used... [Redo]?”