The pale blue light from the lumitoiles inside the glass jars cast restless dancing shadows on the damp stone walls.
The silence in the room was so dense after Furina's confession, it almost felt solid.
The only sound was the soft rhythmic ticking from a clockwork machine somewhere on the wall—tik-tok, tik-tok—and the dripping of water from the ceiling in the distant corridor, a constant echo from the submerged world above them.
The air in the room was filled with the sharp antiseptic scent, the smell of crushed herbs, and the faint aroma of cooling broth soup on the table.
Charles was still lying on the bed, his body stiff, his sharp eyes staring straight at Furina.
The shock he had felt earlier—seeing a System screen identical to his appear above the girl's palm—had now subsided, replaced by a cold and sharp calculation.
He no longer saw a frightened girl. He saw a new chess piece on a game board he didn't understand.
A Player.
He moved his stiff body, the dull pain from his severed shoulder still throbbing under the thick bandage. His remaining right hand gripped the rough linen blanket tightly.
"What will you do with that system?"
Charles's voice sounded hoarse and flat, shattering the silence like shards of glass.
Furina, who had been looking down, staring at her own still-glowing System screen, slowly lifted her head. The tears on her face had dried, leaving glistening tracks on her pale cheeks.
Her fragility that had been so clear earlier had now vanished, replaced by something new—a cold resolve that Charles had never seen before. Her heterochromatic eyes—one blue, one purple—stared straight into Charles's eyes, no longer afraid.
"I will use it," she said, her voice soft but steady, each word spoken with a frightening conviction. "I will help many people. Including my citizens. Those who need it. And save those who are suffering."
She paused for a moment, a thin, bitter smile curving her lips. "I have spent five hundred years on stage, playing a role to deceive the world and save them from a horrific fate. I failed to make them happy."
She clenched her trembling hand, the System screen vanishing in an instant. "But now... now I have real power. Power to truly change something. I want to use this system to make the world better than before. A world where no one has to endure the loneliness I felt."
Charles stared at her in silence, analyzing every word, every shift in her tone. He leaned his body slightly forward, ignoring the stabbing pain in his shoulder and thigh.
"Even if people don't want to be saved by you?" he asked, his voice sharp like an ice dagger.
The question clearly pierced Furina. She flinched as if she had just been slapped. Her shoulders slumped slightly, and she turned her face away for a moment, staring at the dark stone wall.
"Maybe..." she whispered, her voice trembling again. "Maybe this is selfish. But I will still save them, even if they reject my help. I don't care if they hate me. I don't care if they spit on me."
She looked back at Charles, her eyes now glistening, but the fire of determination burned so brightly within them. "I don't want them to experience suffering. Life is suffering, I know that better than anyone. But... there are times when we don't have to suffer. And I want... I really want to make those moments a reality for them."
Silence enveloped the room again. Charles stared at her for a long time.
His eyes narrowed. He saw it now.
Behind those noble words, he saw the core of Furina's motivation.
It wasn't about pure altruism. It was about redemption.
A desperate attempt to validate her own suffering over five centuries, to prove that it all had meaning.
A selfishness born from the greatest sacrifice.
And somehow, that made him... smile.
His characteristic cynical smile, but this time tinged with a spark of genuine respect. "I support you," he said.
Furina was stunned, her eyes widening. She hadn't expected to hear those words.
That was when Charles began to move.
With a groan stifled between his clenched teeth, he shifted his bandaged legs to the edge of the bed. His right hand gripped the cold metal bedpost tightly, his knuckles turning white from the pressure.
Cold sweat immediately beaded on his temples as he forced his shattered body to stand. Sharp, blinding pain exploded in his shoulder, arm, and thigh, blurring his vision for a moment, but he endured it, refusing to show weakness.
"Then," he said, his voice slightly ragged from the pain. "Before that noble aspiration is achieved, we need to resolve the problem right in front of us."
He stood unsteadily, his now unbalanced body leaning on the bedpost, his breath heavy.
Furina jumped up immediately, her face filled with new panic. "Where are you going?!" she cried, her hand reaching out as if to stop him. "You can't even stand properly! Your wounds... your wounds aren't healed yet!"
Charles raised his right hand, halting the girl's protest. His eyes behind the mask stared straight at the door.
"Destroy the root of the problem," he answered curtly.
"But Charles, you can't!" Furina screamed, her tears threatening again.
"Out there... that golem... I don't know what it is, but that thing almost killed you! And... and this cold... this curse... we don't know what caused it! You'll die!"
"Don't hold me back," Charles said, his voice now cold and sharp like the ice outside. He didn't look at Furina. He looked at the door, as if staring at his own fate.
"Now, we might both be Players, Furina. But we have different life goals. You want to save this world. I..." He paused for a moment, the image of the Raiden Shogun slashing his arm flashing in his mind. His jaw tightened.
"I just want to see another world burn."
He began to limp toward the door, each step a painful struggle. "And this is my choice."
Before he reached the door handle, he stopped, but didn't turn around. "Where are my things?"
...
Furina told him that his belongings—his torn ronin cloak, his cracked mask, and his weapons—were stored in the main storage room near the shelter's entrance.
As Charles opened his room door, a new world full of despair immediately greeted him.
If his bedroom was a tranquil oasis, then the main shelter was a turbulent sea of suffering. He now stood on a balcony overlooking a vast underground cave—perhaps one of Fontaine's ancient main aqueducts.
The ceiling was so high it was almost invisible in the darkness, adorned with rusted giant pipes dripping water incessantly, creating a constant echo of dripping in the entire room. The air inside felt cold, damp, and heavy, filled with the smell of thousands of crammed human bodies, the scent of bland communal cooking, the odor of ragged cloth, and most densely, the sour smell of fear.
The light in the place was dim, coming only from a few flickering emergency clockwork lamps and dozens of small bonfires burning in oil drums, creating long dancing shadows like ghosts on the wet stone walls.
Below, on the vast cave floor, hundreds, perhaps thousands of surviving Fontaine citizens gathered in pitiful small groups.
Charles began to descend the slippery stone stairs, his unbalanced steps echoing in the tense silence.
As he walked past the crowd, a ripple of silence spread before him.
People stopped whispering.
Their dirty and gaunt faces turned toward him. They saw his menacing figure—a tall man with one arm, wrapped in a dark ronin cloak. They saw the aura of violence and death clinging to his body like a second shadow.
Mothers instinctively pulled their children closer, hiding their faces behind their ragged skirts.
Men who had tried to act tough now lowered their gazes, not daring to meet his eyes.
Even the Melusine guards, patrolling with makeshift spears, paused momentarily, their small hands gripping their weapons tightly as Charles passed.
He walked past them all, ignoring their stares, ignoring their fear. This is what she wants to save, he thought, his usual cynicism resurfacing. A flock of frightened sheep, waiting to be saved or slaughtered. They look at me as if I'm a monster, when I just killed a much bigger monster to protect them.
He reached the storage room, a smaller cave filled with stacks of crates and supplies.
In the corner, his belongings lay, just as Furina had said. He knelt with difficulty. His right hand moved efficiently. He took his modified revolver, feeling its cold and familiar metal in his palm. He checked the cylinder. Full.
He slipped it back into its holster.
He took his tanto, the weapon he had stolen, and tucked it into his belt.
Finally, he took his fox mask.
He stared at it in silence for a few moments. The mask was cracked at the left eye, and there was still dried blood stain from the informant on its cheek. He stared at his own blurry reflection in its white ceramic surface.
The man who came to Fontaine with curiosity died in that cafe, he thought, his voice in his head flat and emotionless. The man who admired an Ei died on the Inazuma hill. What's left... is this. A tool. A weapon. A vengeance.
With a slow and deliberate motion, he lifted the mask to his face.
Instantly, the world around him changed. The whispers and fearful sounds from the shelter became muffled, as if coming from a great distance.
His vision narrowed, now confined to the mask's two narrow eye slits. The stuffy smell of the shelter vanished, replaced by the faint scent of wood and paint from the mask itself.
He was no longer Charles, the wounded wanderer.
He had returned to being the faceless Kitsune, a ghost walking among the living and the dead.
He turned and walked toward the shelter's exit, his steps now steadier, his pain buried deep beneath his new mask.
He didn't look back, toward Furina who he knew was still watching him from the balcony above with a gaze full of despair.
He just kept walking, stepping out from that fragile warmth, back into the embrace of the cold and frozen world.
...
The air felt like thousands of ice needles piercing his lungs.
Every breath was a painful struggle, thick white vapor puffing from his open mouth and immediately freezing on his rough wool scarf's bristles.
Léo ran. He ran as hard as he could, his oversized boots slipping on the thin ice layer covering the stone streets, nearly making him fall every few steps.
He didn't dare look back. He didn't need to.
DUG... KRAK... DUG...
That sound haunted him. A deep, heavy, and merciless sound, like the heartbeat of an angry frozen mountain. It was the sound of the Guardian Golem's footsteps.
Each step shook the frozen ground beneath his feet, sending faint vibrations he could feel creeping up through his thin boot soles.
Mom... Mom... he whispered between his ragged breaths, hot tears streaming down his cheeks reddened by the cold, but immediately freezing into small stinging crystals.
He should never have gone out. His mother had told him. Don't ever go outside, Léo. It's dangerous out there. The Golems are still patrolling.
But he just wanted to find the remnants of butter biscuit cans his father had told him about, biscuits that supposedly tasted like sunshine.
He just wanted to taste something other than the bland watery soup in the shelter.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! he thought, cursing himself.
DUG... KRAK...
The sound was getting closer. He could hear it now, not just the vibration. The sound of giant ice chunks rubbing against each other, the deep and nauseating creaking.
He could smell it too; the strange scent carried by the wind, the sharp and sterile ozone smell, like lightning right before it strikes.
Ahead of him, a narrow dark alley gaped between two ruined apartment buildings. That was his chance. Without thinking, he turned sharply, his small agile body thrown into the darkness.
He fell, his knees hitting a pile of dirty frozen snow and debris, sharp pain stabbing him, but he didn't care.
He quickly got up and crawled deeper, hiding behind a stack of wooden crates that had frozen into one.
Here, in the alley sheltered from the wind, his own sounds were deafening. His ragged breathing, his heart pounding so hard in his chest that he feared the golem could hear it.
Don't make a sound. Don't make a sound. Please, go away. Go away... he prayed inwardly, his wide horrified eyes staring toward the alley entrance, his gloved wet hands pressing his mouth tightly.
He waited. The sudden silence felt more terrifying than the footsteps earlier.
Then, he saw it. A massive shadow covered the alley entrance, blocking the pale moonlight. The golem had stopped right outside. Léo held his breath until his lungs felt like they would explode.
DUG...
The golem stepped into the alley.
Léo screamed inwardly. He pressed his body tighter against the cold rough brick wall, trying to make himself invisible.
The golem moved slowly, its ice head turning left and right, its pale blue eyes—the cold light that was its core—scanning the darkness.
He could feel the cold aura emanating from the golem's body, a cold different from the surrounding air, a cold that felt alive and full of hatred.
The golem passed him. It didn't see Léo.
Léo nearly cried from relief. He let his breath out in a soft, trembling sigh. He was safe. He had made it.
But at that moment, the golem suddenly stopped.
It stopped right beside the crate stack where Léo was hiding. Léo froze again. The golem slowly turned, its pale blue eyes now staring straight at the crate stack.
It knows. Oh, Archon... it knows I'm here!
The golem raised its massive arm, made of sharp ice shards.
KRAAASSHHH!
With one mighty swing, the golem shattered the wooden crate stack into pieces.
Léo screamed in horror as shards of wood and ice flew around him. He rolled to the side, avoiding the giant ice fist that smashed where he had hidden seconds ago.
He ran again, now with pure panic. He no longer cared about the pain in his knee or his burning lungs. He ran out of the narrow alley, back to the wider main street.
The golem was no longer walking. It ran after him. Each heavy step now faster, more ferocious.
DUG-DUG-DUG!
The ground beneath shook violently.
Léo looked ahead, searching for another hiding place. A ruined toy store. A frozen fountain. Nothing safe. The golem was too big, too strong.
As he ran across the small open square, his tired feet suddenly slipped on an unseen black ice layer.
Time seemed to slow. He felt his body lose balance, his arms flailing uselessly trying to grab something that wasn't there.
He fell hard, his back hitting the ice first, forcing all the air from his lungs in one painful burst.
He lay there, staring at the gray sky, unable to move, unable to breathe. He tried to get up, but his ankle twisted with sharp, white pain, making him fall back with a scream of agony.
DUG...
The vibration was so close.
DUG...
He turned, pushing his body back with his hands and good foot, like a frightened crab. Tears now streaming profusely, freezing his cheeks.
The golem had stopped right in front of him.
It towered high above Léo, a living ice mountain, blocking the remaining pale sky light. Its pale blue eyes now stared straight down at Léo.
In that blue light, Léo saw no anger or hatred. He saw only emptiness. A cold and inevitable command to destroy the anomaly it saw.
Slowly, the golem raised its massive fist, filled with razor-sharp ice crystals. It raised it high into the air, ready to crush the small body below into bloody pulp on the ice.
Léo stopped moving. He stopped crying. He just stared at the fist that would end his life. His overwhelming fear had turned into empty resignation.
Mom... forgive me... I'm so cold...
He closed his eyes tightly, waiting for the impact that would end everything.
BANG!
It wasn't the sound of impact he heard. Not the crushing pain. But a sound so loud, so sharp, so foreign—like the crack of dry thunder exploding right beside his ear.
The sudden silence that followed felt more deafening.
Léo still had his eyes closed, his body trembling violently. He was still alive. He felt no pain. What happened?
Trembling, he opened one eye.
The golem was still there, its fist still raised in the air, frozen mid-swing. But something was different. The pulsing blue light that had shone fiercely in its chest core had now gone out. And in the center of the now dark core, there was a small neat hole.
As Léo watched, the golem began to tremble. Small cracks started appearing all over its body, spreading like a spider's web. Then, with a soft rumbling sound, its entire massive body shattered into pieces, collapsing into a large pile of harmless snow and ice shards, enveloping Léo in cold ice dust.
Léo coughed, still too shocked to comprehend what had just happened.
Slowly, he lifted his head, his tear-filled eyes trying to find the source of the explosion sound.
At the end of the street, in the shadow of a ruined building, a figure stood.
The figure was tall and slender, wrapped in a ronin cloak fluttering gently in the wind. It stood so still, so calm, as if it was part of the darkness itself.
One sleeve dangled empty at its side, tied with a dirty bandage. Its other hand was raised, holding a strange pitch-black metal object, its tip still emitting thin smoke with a sharp sulfur smell.
And on its face... it wore a mask. A pale white kitsune fox mask, with elegant blood-red streaks, its narrowed eyes and thin smile seeming to stare straight at Léo.
...
A/N: I'm getting tired of commenting on my own... but it will be over soon!
Btw, I'm still expecting comments!
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