I’m a child again, huh? I didn’t have any particularly bad memories of this time.
Seiren shivers and starts to rub his arms. He turns around to find the lights cut off, aside from some ambient lighting from a window at the end of the hall. The window is wide open and blowing in snow and cold air.
It’s freezing all of a sudden. He thinks as his small body shakes violently.
He steadily moves closer to the window trying to warm himself by rubbing his own arms. Step by step, a familiar scent begins to fill the air. A sort of uplifting orange scent fills the air with each step. The scent hangs onto the air growing stronger and stronger. Seiren’s nostrils flare up as he begins coughing, when his eyes open again, his mother is standing there at the end of the hallway. Bawling her eyes out, a photograph in her hands. A man standing in the sunlight with bushy black hair in his army fatigues. She hears the creaking of the tiles behind her and turns around. She and Seiren face each other. There’s a long pause. Eliza gets up from the floor. Places the photo down. And takes a few steps toward Seiren. He stands there unflinchingly. He looks up at her. She takes a knee. Their eyes meet. Their matching blue eyes reflect each other’s expressions. Seiren’s emotionless gaze. And her slowly changing face. She places her hands on his shoulders. She forces him to the ground with a slam.
Crack!
The sound of the tile resounds. Seiren’s head begins to spin. As he recovers, he feels her fingers coil around his neck, tears dripping down her face. The tears land on his cheeks. Her hands squeeze his tiny neck, causing Seiren to struggle for air. Her hands loosen up.
“Come on!” She shouts. As if to psych herself up. “I should’ve never given birth to you! It’s because of you that he died!”
She squeezes his throat, but shortly after let's go again, and breaks down.
Seiren rises with some of her tears mixed with his own, He reaches forward and wraps his arms around her, and says: “I'm sorry. But this isn’t real.”
Seiren balls his fist up again, realizing, he’s grabbed the very darkness itself. With all the strength his body can muster he tears as hard as he can. The space around them begins to distort, the former hallway slowly shifts and twists into darkness spiking out of control every few seconds. With each spike, the space becomes more and more distorted and slowly everything begins fading away. Domino observes Seiren
He’s not reacting how I expected him to. Usually, the suffering begins the moment they get in. With how my ability works, the more mentally unstable someone is the stronger it affects them. It’ll reach deep into their subconscious and tear out their greatest fears. For less intelligent creatures, they simply lose all of their senses, devolving into nothing more than pawns. It starts with a five-step process, beginning with the 5 senses. Sight is enveloped in darkness, hearing is cut dampened, smell, taste, and touch are all cut off. Which makes it harder for them to be taken out of the illusion. But something's not right with this guy. It's like he’s tearing through the darkness itself to escape the illusion. Domino thinks as they grab a rock. I can’t take any chances with him.
Seiren’s body begins shaking violently as he’s within the illusions. Domino raises the rock above Seiren’s head.
“No hard feelings kid! I’m just making sure!” Domino says as he drives the rock toward Seiren.
“No hard feelings…?” Seiren mutters as his face tenses up in anger.
Seiren drives the spear into domino’s stomach. Following up, Seiren begins adjusting the length of the spear while thrusting it through his body over and over. A blinding flurry of thrusts came flying toward and through Domino as blood began to splatter all over.
“Don’t you ever taint my mother’s image with your illusions!” Seiren shouts.
Seiren extends his spear and the momentum sends domino flying forward—like a ragdoll—with it into a boulder with a loud crash. Seiren breathes out heavily as he falls onto his knees, sweat dripping onto the sediment
Up till now, I’ve only used shadows. So does this mean I can manipulate darkness to some extent too? Either way, it’s incredibly exhausting, right now it’s too much for me. Seiren thinks.
After regaining himself, Seiren rose back to his feet, when he looked over, he saw that Liviana was lying on the ground, shaking violently.
“What happened?” Seiren asks with a look of intrigue.
“Looks like the winners this time are Black and Blue!!!” The Advocate announces. “The other two couldn’t manage their distances well enough and the collar took them out! Ya’ hate to see it!”
If the collar didn’t go off, I don’t know if I’d have been able to actually fight like this. Mera thinks.
“At least it’s over for now,” Seiren says.
“Yeah…” Mera mutters.
Seiren notices Mera’s hands shaking.
She must still be shaken from the illusion. Seiren thinks.
“Let's get out of here,” Seiren says as he turns to the exit.
“Yeah.” Mera agrees.
The duo exit the arena and return to the cell and to their surprise, Maya is gone. Seiren and Mera take a seat in their cell. Mera's palms trace her face, pushing her bangs upward as she sighs.
“Are you alright?” Seiren asks worriedly.
“Somewhat.” She says.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” He asks.
“Maybe some other time.” She lets out a low groan.
I can’t really do anything if she doesn’t want to talk about it. Seiren thinks.
Seiren couldn’t help but feel a hint of unease as their next match slowly crept closer.
The silence between them continued until the demon appeared, yet again signaling the coming of the next match. After making their way to the ring yet again, they stood there alone.
Did our opponents not get here yet? Seiren questions.
He looks over at Mera who looks back and shrugs. The expression painted on her face tenses up when two figures appear from the other side. An unnatural breeze sweeps through the field kicking up dust and creates a cloud, obscuring the details. Yet, the sound of one set of footsteps fills the air. The footsteps come to a sudden halt and the duo find their anxiousness building slowly.
Seiren’s eyes widen and even Mera looks visually perturbed as a lab coat-wearing man calmly walks first through the cloud. His greasy short purple hair has a dull shine even in the light. Despite his youthful appearance, he gave off the aura of someone much older. Seiren and Mera continue looking out for what seems to be a partner, but they never came. Instead, they look to the now yawning Coma.
“Were you expecting me to have a partner?” Coma says. “Every opponent elicits the same response.”
“Forget about that for right now,” Seiren says while clenching a fist. “Mera, that’s him right?”
“Yeah, undoubtedly so.” She says.
Coma raises an eyebrow in surprise.
“Why did you experiment on all of those people on sloth?!” Seiren questions.
“Before I answer… Why do you care?” Coma questions, flipping his palms over.
“I care because they’re human like us,” Seiren says, placing a hand on his chest.
“Do you care because they’re also human? Or do you care only because of the unpleasantness brought to you?” Coma says. “You or anyone else for that matter is no different than a lesser demon. So why should I care about your lives?”
There’s nothing I can say to him. We’re about the same age, yet we’re completely different. He genuinely sees us as nothing but animals. Seiren thinks.
“If we’ve finished this trite discussion, let's get on with this fight. I have abilities to round out.” Coma says.
“Seiren we need to be careful here. If this guy is alone…”
“Then he’s probably really strong.” Seiren sighs.
He materializes his spear and slides his foot back into a combat stance.
“Here it is folks! The heated semi-final round is about to commence!” The advocate announces.
We’re in the semi-finals already..? Mera thinks.
Coma rubs his shoulder and cracks his neck.
“Did you know that when every fight starts, the entire arena becomes 40 by 40 ft box? Everything is sealed within including air. Meaning we have limited resources.” He explains.
Seiren and Mera both look confused at his remarks, but then Mera’s eyes widen in surprise.
She raises her finger to Coma immediately but hesitates. Her vision begins to twist in shades of cyan and red, and the image of a dying man overlaps with Coma. A hole rests right between his eyes, blood dripping down like pouring rain. Her heart sinks and her breathing becomes rapid.
While watching Mera’s episode, Coma shakes his head and takes in a deep breath. Seiren dashes forward after watching Coma make a move, but it was already too late. Coma exhales an incredible amount of purple gas, spreading like a wave, it fills the space in mere seconds. Obscuring the vision of both the crowd and other hell-raisers watching the bout. Seiren while mid dash, drops to the ground, releasing his grasp of the spear, as it rolled before Coma. Seiren’s body began to tingle, and his eyesight waned. Coma stepped closer to Seiren and kneeled beside him.
“This is why you can’t trust inferior humans,” Coma says. “Had your partner performed adequately, I could’ve been prevented from using that attack. But because you chose to rely on someone else this was the result.”
Coma stood up walked to Seiren’s side and kicked him in the stomach, knocking him away.
Is he trying to get me outside of Mera’s choker range? Seiren thought.
Although he was hit in the stomach, the pain was hardly there similar to the lack of sensation in his whole body. Kick after kick, Coma sent him further and further until Seiren’s body began convulsing.
“That collar—from what I observed—Puts you in a state of temporary death. The longer you spend outside of your partner’s radius, the more of your body’s internal functions begin to fail until you lose consciousness. It’s supposed to be painful, but I doubt you can feel much of anything right now. It’s been quite easy to take advantage of, just by observing other matches.” He explains.
He watches, as Seiren slowly reaches forward to try and pull himself back into the radius. His hand merely slides across the dirt, accomplishing nothing.
“You’re nothing if not persistent. But, persistence means nothing, when you can’t even rely on your own strength.” Coma says.
Those words reverberate throughout Seiren’s head as his vision finally fades to black and with it, his hand drops to the dirt. The poisonous cloud slowly begins to clear up, revealing Mera at the other side of the arena, out cold as well.
“And yet again, the winner is Coma! Moving onto the finals!” The advocate happily declared.
Coma merely walks out of the arena and back into the halls of the colosseum. Seiren and Mera lifelessly remained in the ring as a pair of demons came over to them…
“Do look forward to our special event after the finals have concluded!” The Advocate announced with a wide grin.
Half an Hour Later…
Footsteps echoed through the dark sandstone hallway. Steadily traveling toward the light at the end of the tunnel, with her torn, and fraying cloak swaying. Her arms were bound in chains and the echoing sound of the chains clink together with the sound of her footsteps. As Maya stepped foot onto the field, she covers her eyes briefly after spending so long in the dark cell. The arena cheered loudly as Maya stepped out onto the field.
“Everyone’s favorite! The Silent Executioner! Doling out a vicious punishment to the chosen losers of the tournament!” The advocate shouts, his foot on the railing of the upper rows of the colosseum. “Every time a tournament comes to an end, one of the losers will be brutally obliterated!”
Maya walks further into the ring and stands there silently.
“Now to pick her opponent! One unlucky duo will have to fight to the death with this deadly lioness!” He shouts. “Alright! Let's bring out the wheel!”
A giant wheel materializes in the center of the ring’s floor. Separated into 12 different segments each containing a pair of faces on it.
“Now! Let’s spin the wheel of misfortune!” The advocate exclaims.
The wheel begins to spin and the entire colosseum sat in silence at the anticipation. The wheel slowly began to ease up. Demons were leaning almost entirely out of their seats, while the advocate looked on with a sinister grin.
The wheel comes to a screeching halt and cheers erupt once more from the arena. Maya’s eyes widen as some semblance of life is breathed back into them, only for her eyes to widen in surprise. Two small illustrations rested on the chosen segment of the wheel A boy with black hair and a girl with blue hair.
“Looks like the execution this time is Seiren and Mera!!! The Black and Blue Duo!” The advocate shouts.
Maya looks up at the advocate and sucks her teeth. With a look of dejection on her face, she sighs.
I hope the two of you can forgive me. This has become all that I am now. It’s already far too late to stop now. Maya thinks.
Meanwhile… Back at the cell, Seiren and Mera had awoken after their prior defeat to Coma. Despite there being an obvious tension in the air, they sat almost entirely in silence.
“It’s not your fault,” Seiren says to break the silence.
“How? I froze up out there. We’re risking our lives here, I can’t afford to be freezing up like this!” She yells, mad at herself.
“We were completely outmatched,” Seiren says. “So don’t blame yourself so much.”
Mera opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but sighed instead.
Coma didn't even have to work for that victory. I didn't even get close enough to land a hit. After sitting down and looking back at everything, a lot of our successes were just luck. Coma was the one that cleared out most of the demons on the first layer. If we fought those two hunters on the second layer, we probably would have been killed again. Just one was a handful. Most if not all, of the opponents we've fought this layer, didn't even use teamwork. Hell, even we didn't use that much, we still managed to get here. There's no way we can succeed like this. Sooner or later that luck is gonna run out. What are we gonna do? Seiren thinks.
Bang!
Interrupting his chain of thought was one of the demons assigned to bring people into the ring. Seiren tilts his head, then looks over at Mera who shrugs. Following the demon, they exit the cell and head onto the field once more.
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