The Harvester

Early in the morning, in the heart of Atlantis, crowds gathered and streamed the streets of New Athens. Several aquatic bridges had been newly created to connect the spiral city and the Arena for the day.

 

Amid the swarm of people, Allan suddenly sneezed as one of the cold morning breezes of Atlantis blew by. “Aah… you would think stuff like this wouldn’t happen anymore after all those increases in attributes,” he muttered to himself. “Hey, why do we have to come so early? Rak will only appear for the last event, no?”

 

“The invitation basically implied a full-on party for the entire day,” Rakna replied, walking ahead of the blond with a modified appearance to not garner any unwanted attention.

 

“Well, fuck them,” Allan grumbled.

 

“Stop being a lazy ruffian,” Akronis huffed while perched on his shoulder.

 

“Oh, shut up. Dealing with you requires at least two more hours of sleep.”

 

“Hah! Of course, you’d require more energy to possibly cope with my superior intellect.”

 

“Stupid bat…”

 

“You are one as well, you know?”

 

“Can you please stop embarrassing us?” Marie rubbed the bridge of her nose next to them. 

 

As the pair of master and soul beast bickered, Flavia walked behind everyone else with a mortified expression, as if she had just learned her puppy had died. Astraea and Nyx were trying to console her with wry smiles.

 

“Why today…?” The Chaos Witch groaned. Her divination had told her when Wis would reawaken and to her chagrin, it was today. “I don’t want to be in public when that silly thing appears on top of my head…”

 

“Accept your fate, woman,” Hans chortled to the side. “How bad can it be for a witch of your talent and ilk to sport a hat?”

 

“Hahaha, I agree with the pipsqueak,” Higure smirked. “Come on, you rock the witch style. I think we should even get you some proper equipment to match it… Hm, yes. A black dress, a choker, and maybe a broom staff? That would look nice on you.”

 

“Please, spare me…” Flavia whined.

 

“…” Separated from the others, Evelyn gazed forward in silence, an unreadable expression on her face. 

 

Rakna glanced at her with a raised eyebrow. “Is something wrong?”

 

“Uh?” The succubus shook as if she had just been jolted awake. Agitatedly, she turned full toward the therian and waved her hands. “N-no, I’m fine! I was just… thinking.”

 

“Really now?” He uttered unconvinced and she looked down awkwardly. “Are you nervous to take the first step in your revenge?” He inquired without ceremony and the cambion pursed her lips.

 

“I don’t know…” She clenched her fists and the black aura she occasionally let out appeared around her body for a moment. However, this time, she clearly was looking at it herself; as if she had finally decided to look at something she desperately tried to ignore. “I’m starting to feel scared… that my feelings are never going to be satisfied with whatever revenge I get.”

 

Rakna’s eyes widened slightly at her confession. “I see… as expected of you,” he said and she raised her head with a confused expression. “There’s a fine line between rage and madness,” he explained with a smile. “And you stand on neither. You are quite literally careening over the boundary. You understand the source of your anger, but you don’t agree with it.”

 

Evelyn gawked at him speechless. “That… you’ve been seeing that in me all this time?”

 

“Of course. If anything, I’m quite perceptive,” the therian snorted and as if making a point, his hand grabbed Ceresta’s collar from a blind spot and stopped her from wandering off. He held her in like an overgrown cat as she seemed engrossed with the sightings of the city. “She doesn’t even react to me holding her back…” He uttered in amusement.

 

The succubus also flashed a small smile before quickly reverting to a sad one. “You should know then…” She muttered and raised her hand, a black aura spontaneously appearing around it. “This is not my unawakened Nirvana Skill or anything… you’ve seen it before.”

 

“Blackening,” Rakna answered succinctly. The same affliction that had struck her brother.

 

“Demons aren’t like Devils,” Evelyn said wryly. “The latter are perfection of sorts… the dark energy they employ is just that; negativity and grim causality. But that’s not what their power is; it’s what they’re made of. That is the very idea behind ‘Infernity’.”

 

“…”

 

“Demons are… lesser. They take negativity and dumb it down to a single concept. Because what they are in the end is mortal vessels living off dark forces. Thus, their power becomes their nature itself. And it’s oh so easy… to use evil as the primary fuel,” she narrowed her eyes. “The same way you become slothful, prideful, or wrathful when using your Sins, demons get affected as well.”

 

“But unlike you, they don’t have Infernity to reign them in. It just doesn’t stop at ‘using it’. Without proper control and self-restraint, they lose themselves into wickedness reflecting their grudges and vices…” She gritted her teeth and the black aura seemed to get stronger as if refusing to fade.

 

At that point, the rest of the group had completely halted their own distractions, paying attention to her every word with Hans particularly giving her a sidelong glance of understanding.

 

“I don’t want revenge,” she said with a stiff expression as if she was suppressing a grimace. “I only want retribution for what was done to my family; to my brother. Yet…” She covered her face with her hand cloaked in aura but failed to hide a half-formed grin crooking her lips. “Every time I think about it… the only desire that comes to mind is to kill all of them until nothing remains.”

 

Everyone fell silent and she dragged her hand back down as the black energy died down, her face donning a strained and desolate smile. “Blackening distorts demonic energy into vice, not sin. I am scared that I’ve already fallen into it since long ago… and that my current actions are not mine to control.”

 

Rakna silently watched as her conflicting emotions came and went. Turning his head forward, he breathed out from his nose and spoke up, “Really, between you, Flavia, Hans, or me, this is one hell of a deviant group.”

 

Flavia let out a smile at that, conveying both amusement and the ghost of something she seldom allowed to manifest; one that made anyone look at it shiver unknowingly. Hans, on the other hand, sneered mockingly.

 

“Nyx is a literal goddess and she still feels like the most normal person here,” Rakna uttered.

 

“Oi,” Allan chimed in with a twitch of his lips. “Excuse me? The normal one here is me.” The therian silently deadpanned at him in return and a vein popped on his forehead. “Why are you looking at me like that?! It’s true!”

 

“Well, it’s true you are quite ‘human’ when it comes to behavior,” Marie chuckled. “But somehow, you are a bit ‘too much’ as well. I’ve never seen a mind as hardened as steel like yours. For better or worse, you possess inhuman willpower and an unbending spirit.”

 

“…is that a compliment?” He asked with a blink.

 

The lamia snickered. “Who knows?”

 

“She called you inhumanly stubborn, you dolt,” Hans summarized calmy.

 

Allan grunted at the azure-haired boy. “…at least with you, it’s not hard to tell if it’s an insult,” he blankly said then realized something. “No, wait! Rak! You agree with them?!”

 

Ignoring the blond, Rakna patted Evelyn’s head and she yelped as he ruffled her hair a bit. “I have no valid or responsible advice for you, I’m afraid,” he said softly and pulled away, letting her brush her hair back with a pout. “Accept it, repress it, surrender to it, merge with it, consume it… just do what you want. Whatever that desire of yours turns you into, I at least won’t give up on you.”

 

Evelyn’s breath hitched and she averted her eyes with burning cheeks. “T-t-thank you…”

 

“And there he goes wooing the poor girls again,” Higure shook her head.

 

“He may not have advice, but I do,” Hans commented and they all looked at him. The author pushed his glasses and squinted at the succubus. “Do not underestimate yourself,” he stated and let those words hang in the air for a moment… before looking back at the book he had been reading without clarification or elaboration.

 

“That’s it?!” Higure retorted but he didn’t even heed her voice.

 

Rakna laughed lightly and his friends blankly stared at him. For some reason, only the therian ever seemed to be having fun whenever Hans’ poisonous tongue reared its ugly head.

 

“{You noticed as well,}” Fray remarked lightly inside his mind at the same time. Rakna huffed and stole a glimpse of Evelyn’s perplexity as she blinked at the blue-haired boy. “{She is not wrong to believe that black aura is Blackening. I have encountered it myself in the past,}” the fabulist said. 

 

“{However,}” he paused. “{…such corruption is not merciful enough to allow her to retain sanity while showing clear signs of infection. She does not seem to realize that.}”

 

‘She will eventually see it for herself…’ Rakna responded solemnly and shifted his focus to a building at the end of the street. It was easily twice as big and luxurious as everything else around and most importantly, a private water bridge connected its upper floors with the Arena.

 

“It’s over there, isn’t it?” The therian said aloud, catching everyone’s attention. Simultaneously, he opened the map of New Athens with his Eye to confirm the answer to said question.

 

“It is indeed,” Ceresta spoke up first, her digital records providing the answer faster than anyone else could. “It belongs to the Barastiel aristocratic family. One of the most influential of the Plateau as well as the one that invited you.”

 

While listening to her explanation, the group got closer and Allan abruptly froze. His hand moved to cover his mouth and nose as his expression was contorted by a grimace.

 

“Are you okay?” Marie immediately slowed down in worry and the others turned around.

 

The blond shook his head and lowered his hand, revealing his fangs that had grown sharper but were gradually returning to their regular state. “I just… lost control of my senses a bit there,” he said with a wince.

 

Akronis huffed and raised his voice, “Simply said, there’s quite the gathering of powerful blood in that building.” The white bat’s eyes glowed. “Nothing quite divine… but it is of such concentration and power that it’s able to rouse even a dormant Ichubyr’s instinct.”

 

“You’re not going to go on a killing spree, are you?” Rakna asked jokingly.

 

“Of course not,” he groaned. “I was just surprised. I’m still getting used to smelling blood since we managed a Resonance,” he said whilst glancing at his soul beast. “This prick never told me it would bleed onto me. I already had some, obviously, but he enhanced it beyond my control.”

 

“Heh! Don’t blame it on me, child,” Akronis scoffed. “At the end of the day, our races make us more than compatible. It’s natural some of our traits get shared. Just like how the young witch here gains slight magical resistance or how the Hydra provides poison resistance; we simply do it on a more pronounced scale.”

 

“Well, I can’t blame you for freaking out,” the therian said. In truth, he had sensed those presences long before the building even came into view. That much was pretty much passive and automatic for him. 

 

Whether it be the Voices of Mana or the fluctuations of Soul Power, that building was drowned by their interference. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. “Be careful of the Arena when we get there as well,” Rakna added.

 

“…why?” Allan inquired, dreading the answer.

 

The therian smirked and only gave one sentence in explanation, “Kara did a good job.”