Guilt wracked Mom, not because she’d taken a man’s life, but because her mistakes might take her children’s. I couldn’t sugar-coat it: because of what she did, we perpetually lived in danger. The stress was eating at her, eating at Dad, and constantly any semblance of conversation devolved into biting arguments. Though, once, Mom suggested that she should turn herself in so we could be safe—Dad shouted her down.
Despite the blood on their hands, they still loved and cared for each other, mistakes and everything in-between.
Together, we held onto our shaky faith and repeated to ourselves a single wish: “This outbreak will come to an end soon. It has to.” The world didn’t fuck around with potentially apocalyptic events. They’d send an overwhelming force to thin the breachers, and when the foreign troops came, that was when we could port.
How wrong we were.
At the time, we only knew Hangzhou as the “Outbreak,” but soon it would become known as the “Disaster.”
It earned the moniker through a combination of reasons. Two big ones, really. First was the Chinese government who had a pesky little thing called “pride,” stonewalling international aid and stubbornly insisting on their own competence. Although this was an unprecedented outbreak, China thought they could handle it by themselves. Simply put: no.
The second occurred on day six of the Disaster—two days after the incident at the camp—which went by a special name in textbooks: Red Thursday. On that day, Hangzhou experienced the greatest number of breaches in its history, filling the city with enough breachers to populate a small town.
Of the six-hundred-thousand deaths, one-fifth happened on Red Thursday.
We survived through wit, strength, and dumb luck—all at the cost of Dad losing two fingers, us having to climb over a street of corpses, and sleeping with half-a-dozen bodies in the dark.
After Red Thursday, the Chinese government said that the outbreak was contained and stood its ground. Meanwhile, because of their decisions, the situation inside had gotten much worse. Camps were overrun, supply routes broken, civilians displaced, entire swaths of swords and rifles combat inoperable.
Even if we turned Mom in, where? Would they care anymore? Would we still be safe?
No, that was the answer to those questions.
We had only ourselves to rely on after Red Thursday. The military and Slayers couldn’t save us, the government would rather let a million more of its own citizens die than to willingly admit fault, and the outside world played with bureaucracy like how they did with lives. No one cared about us.
No one will care about us.
If… If I could point to any one event that created the disillusioned, cynical asshole everybody knew and hated, it’d be that.
After Red Thursday, I became a different man. I was quieter. I was angry. Before, in the few fights I had participated in, my stomach twisted when spilling blood; now, I threw myself into the carnage. Breachers fell by my hands because I needed something to rip into—to see their pain reflected in mine.
“Alex…” Dad called me after I finished beating the skull of some monster with a bat.
I gave it one more whack. I wasn’t being thorough. “What.”
“It’s dead.”
“Y’think I don’t know that? I’ve seen enough open chest cavities to be a freakin’ heart surgeon—!” I smashed the bat into the breacher’s chest to prove my point.
Dad said nothing, only looking toward Mom and Althea. Their expressions were lost on me, but at the time, I couldn’t give a single shit what they thought.
After that small “conversation,” Mom and Dad stopped arguing. Didn’t make things better, though. Hangzhou was still an active apocalyptic zone, death and risk of death everywhere. My mind, which had been occupied by silly thoughts like homework and high-school gossip, was wired to think in terms of risks, resources, and survival. This rationalization was forced onto me, and the bright world as I formerly knew it was coded under these metrics.
I wasn’t living, I was operating.
We all were, in our own ways.
Days passed. We never knew true peace for an hour. Hell, not even for a minute. Whenever we could, we ate and drank and rested, then we continued onward. We hid from mils and breachers, avoided survivors if we had to and stayed alone, and fought if there was no other choice. A few times, I recall, we fought people over supplies. It wasn’t often, but it happened. After we drew the first cut, they saw the penchant of combat in our eyes and turned tail—it was later in the Disaster that people got more desperate.
I started to count the number of wounds I had collected; they were a doomsday clock ticking down to the mortal zero. Then, I noticed the timer on the rest of us. Mom and Dad were sprinting toward the end. Day-after-day, they’d pushed themselves, surviving on meager sleep and rations in favor of saving their kids the pain. Seeing them like that, I never felt more ashamed to be their useless son.
Helplessly, I watched as foreign blades drew more tallies on their skins. Every few hours, I noticed something new: a cut or a scratch I hadn’t noticed before. Their shoulders slouched, they walked with a limp, their breaths open and loud. Resting became a fight in itself for them, as they tried to ignore their shackling debilitations.
I was never a religious person, but I started to pray.
Anyone who was watching us, God or the greater forces in the multiverse, take us out of this hellhole. Save Mom and Dad, transfer their pain onto me, and let them see the tomorrow they’d crawled through their entire lives to have.
Nobody answered.
[TEAM STATUS]
INCAPACITATED: Shen Xingyu
When the last of the breachers were killed, we found Mom leaning against the broken stump of a streetlamp. A crossbow bolt was lodged deeply into the left side of her stomach. She grabbed the shaft protruding out, snapped it off, and tried walking only to stumble.
“Xingyu!” Dad exclaimed and stopped her from falling completely, smearing monster-blood over her arms and clothes. “Careful, don’t move—”
Mom coughed, biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from voicing her pain. “Enough…” She pushed Dad aside and stubbornly insisted on walking unassisted. That fell through after a couple steps, and she collapsed.
We spent the rest of the day making a home out of a rummaged clinic. Dad decided to visit a nearby refugee camp that got overrun during Red Thursday; it was beyond risky, but he had to. For Mom. That left me and Althea to keep Mom company as she laid in the best bed we found, and she was forced to endure the constant and gnawing pain eating at her.
She gasped, grinding her teeth, probably counting the seconds until the painkillers kicked in—if they would even work. “Kids…” she muttered weakly. “This is…miserable.”
“Easy, don’t move,” I said, scooting closer with a rolling-stool. “You gotta save your strength when Dad comes back.”
Thea nodded as she watched the window. “D’you want some water or—?”
Mom shook her head. “I’ve…said and done horrible things. Unforgivable things. I… I brought you into this damned city—”
“Stop talking.” I’d never order my mother around like that, but I hated how her words sounded. “You promised we’ll get through this together, alive.”
The “gentle” reminder brought a hollow smile to Mom’s cracked and bleeding lips. “...We will, but let your mother apologize for everything she’s done. I’ve let…my past demons take control of me…”
Thea argued, “Hey, that guy from Zhenlong or whatever—”
“It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have…” Mom laughed at herself and stared at the broken overhead light above. “I shouldn’t have let you see how awful of a person I am—”
“What the hell are you saying—?!” (“Alex, quiet…”) “—I don’t wanna hear this from you—!”
“Alex—!” Mom raised her voice by a little bit, and that slight change in decibel induced a coughing fit. Me and Thea stood from our seats, worried, but gradually the coughing died down. “E-Even then… I may be a terrible person, but I can still be a good mother. I can still… I can still keep you kids from becoming like me.”
We didn’t know what to do with ourselves as Mom spoke, other than stand there silently.
“Don’t let your heart turn black like mine… Be more like your father, good and sensible. Normal. Please, this outbreak shouldn’t take your smiles too…”
The Disaster hadn’t stolen them, but they never fully returned either.
After the conversation, Dad returned with much-needed medical supplies—a miracle—and we patched Mom up as best as we could. It wasn’t perfect. She needed proper medical care, else her condition might worsen from infection and other complications, but we had a few more days before another emergency sprang.
We were on the move. Slower, this time, as more and more of the city fell to the outbreak. Things were getting worse; normally, I’d add “before they would get better” but when would that be? It seemed the days were becoming darker and the nights longer; a part of me didn’t want to assume the worst, that this was the end of the world as we knew it.
The night after Mom was injured, I couldn’t sleep. Usually, the exhaustion would knock me right out but not tonight. No matter how much I twisted and turned, a trip to dreamland wasn’t in the books. Instead, trying not to disturb the others, I walked into the other room—we’d hid in another apartment—and as it turned out, I wasn’t the only insomniac.
Well, I wouldn’t say that. Dad had volunteered to stay up as the watchman. He sat next to the window, vacantly staring out into the smoky and bloody streets. His left hand was tightly bandaged, having two meaty stubs for fingers—every time I looked, nausea was injected into my belly.
His clouded eyes drifted toward me, and he nodded as if understanding why I was up.
I sat across from him.
We enjoyed silence in each other’s company, as much as we could “enjoy” anything in this environment. Eventually, though, Dad had something to say: “Your mother was right. From the beginning, I should’ve taken it seriously. The outbreak is worse than any of us had imagined.”
The flame-crusted buildings, corpses on the roads, our rumbling stomachs and parched throats—yeah, it was bad, but… “It’s the government’s fault, I dunno. They aren’t doing squat—”
“No, that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s…” Dad looked down at his left hand, peering through the gap between his fingers. “Your mother’s in a bad shape. Look at you and Thea. I’m hardly a man, let alone your father.”
“...We’re surviving.”
“We are, but…” Dad sighed and rubbed his eyes, knowing his next words shouldn’t be said. “Never mind. But you know something? Your mother’s the strongest person I know, and that includes your uncle. She’s… She’s everything you should be.”
I fiddled with my fingers. “Strong?”
“Decisive. Strong. Everything. It’s why I fell in love with her. If she can help it, we would leave the city without a single scratch on us. Hell, I want that too if I had the means, heh. That’s why we got you on the mat early. You gotta be strong, Alex, so nobody can touch the people you love.”
Only if the world itself stopped beating us down, then maybe I could do it.
Yet for the rest of the night, I believed I could. I’d get so strong that we would live blissfully in a hilltop mansion and want for nothing.
Until the next day rolled over the crimson sky and erased everything I believed in and trusted.
***
We were surrounded by flames. Wherever the roving, mad horde marched, they brought with them fire to raze the city and celebrate their arrival with destruction. Their cackling joined the popping embers, their silhouettes distorted in the firelight, and they arrived in Hangzhou in hundreds. Armored, organized, armed, with a menacing red glow enveloping their eyes. The unnatural energy trailed back to a cloaked figure, ragged and skinny, wielding a crooked staff that was no better than a thin branch on a tree.
It was far, far more powerful than we were. Than most Slayers.
There was a whisper in our ears, telling us to kneel before the strong and accept our fate as weaklings. If humans were good for one thing, it’d be our stubbornness. We remained on our feet, but we were frozen at the raw sight of the force before us.
Of all places in the city, it had to be here. We were the first witnesses, there when the portal first appeared and when the fires spontaneously combusted.
“An Eschaton,” Mom said, covering her mouth to protect from the smoke and ash. “God help us…”
“That’s…” Thea was clutching onto my sleeve, her entire body shaking. “That’s an Essie?!”
Mom rapidly shook her head as she held her side. “Bastien… BASTIEN!”
Dad stared ahead at the slow-marching horde, his despairing eyes counting the number of swords and clubs and dark, murderous eyes. “Dear Lord… We… Run… RUN!”
I was running before I realized my legs were moving. Around us, the fires blazed and deadly laughter echoed throughout the whole block. “Run!” they must’ve said, “Run like the vermin you are! Run to the ends of the world, it doesn’t matter! Your end is here!” We were going to die. Simple as that. We were dead people walking. As soon as the Essie entered our world, it was game over.
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Dad screamed.
He’d fallen to the ground with an arrow sticking out from his calf.
Mom yelled his name but her voice was drowned by the cheers and flames. Fearlessly, she ran back for him—no, I knew Mom. She was afraid. Out of all of us, she felt the most fear, but the thought of losing her husband scared her more than losing her life.
Dad struggled to crawl let alone stand, and he tried waving her off. “TAKE THE KIDS!” he pleaded. “THE KIDS, PLEASE—!”
She kept running.
Althea and I were a few steps behind, but the distance between us and our parents was a difference of a canyon. Behind them were the horde, marching hardly in sync and their figures steadily growing with every stomp of their metalclad boots. We watched Mom lift Dad to his feet despite his protests.
Together, agonizingly slow, they walked toward us.
We weren’t that far from them, and the same could be said for the breachers. The breachers didn’t need to be close; all they had to do was rain down arrows or whatever else they had.
As we ran, breathing in ash and letting our tears burn away in the heat, our parents looked behind them to see the tidal wave of hunters beginning to rise like a great tide. Something changed in Mom and Dad. The mortal fear in their eyes was gone, and their strained expressions finally relaxed after more than a week in the Disaster. They were not at peace, but they came to an answer.
I knew what they were thinking, but a part of me pushed down the answer as far as I could bury it.
Mom and Dad stood still.
We caught up to them.
“What are you guys doing?!” Thea screamed at them. “We gotta go now!” (No one said anything.) “The Essie’s gonna catch up with us, c’mon! I—!” Thea started to pull my arm. “Say something, Alex—! Alex?”
Selfishly, you thought this was the best thing you could do.
“...We’re not coming with you,” Dad told us first. His voice was soft and gentle like how I always remembered it. “This is where the road ends for us.”
You betrayed us. You said we would come back home together.
Thea choked, “What…?”
“We’ll distract them long enough for you to escape,” Mom said, confident and with a pink smile too. “Tell your uncle that we’ll miss him. He’ll raise you better than we could.”
You knew you’d hurt us in a way that could never be healed.
An arrow smacked against the asphalt nearby.
Dad refused to give the arrow any attention, and instead he directed it all on us. “We’re sorry we couldn’t be better parents, but—” Another arrow landed close. “—take care of each other. You’ll get through this.”
You left us with a dark world.
“We will always be with you,” Mom swore. “Before you know it, you’ll be back home. So please, no matter what, survive. Do you understand, Alex?”
You told us to survive, but…
“Take your sister and go.”
I couldn’t hear the fires anymore. I couldn’t hear the breachers or the Essie, or my sister’s sobbing voice. The world had shrunk down to the space that Mom and Dad occupied. They were bloodied but smiling. I blinked, and we were at home. They were waiting for me after a long day at school, smiling just like that, and we would have a long conversation about the most boring and mundane things as warm stew bubbled on the stovetop and scented pine candles burned on the table.
The image corroded away.
I grabbed Althea and left seventeen years of my life behind.
You whispered to me one last time.
“We will always love you.”
I ran as far as I could with my sister’s fists beating into my back.
I was screaming.
Mom and Dad were gone.
We lost everything.
[Even if you’ve lost everything, you still want to keep going.]
Do you think my legs can take us any further?
[For your mother and father. For your sister. For your uncle.]
My family's the only reason I wake up every morning. I'd be dead in the ground without them.
[Take another step just for them.]
But yet, why? We're all heading down the path to misery.
[Keep holding onto those you consider precious.]
[Because…]
[They are your treasures.]
[Your Mementos.]
That’s when it happened. We [Awakened] to [Memento Recollection] and [Technique Sovereign] on the day our parents died.
[So please, Alexander Shen, survive.]
You appeared, Slayer System. You saw the tragedy play out for yourself, and you had to intervene.
You wanted us to survive.
“Survive,” what a fucking word that was. What does it mean to survive? To run away at the smallest sign of danger? Be afraid of what lurked in the shadows or scared to wake up with a knife to your throat? To be kidnapped, be used as a pawn, as a labrat, to be executed first thing and painfully.
We… We had never stopped surviving since the Hangzhou Disaster.
Why tell us to survive if our lives would end up like this?
What’s the point?
Why should we even…?
“—Alex!” someone called me. “C’mon, Alex!”
I opened my eyes, feeling dirt crunch underneath my broken body. Uncle was reaching out to me. Behind him were soldiers emptying their magazines at some unknown enemy, and Lynn cradled Althea in her bloodied arms. Yup. You got so impatient that you had to rescue us yourself, Uncle Ali. You and a whole team of the finest operators.
I was glad.
You finally came to save us from this hell, but we hopped into a new one—
“Open your eyes, Alex! Don’t give up on me now! ALEX!”
You… That voice… You aren’t my uncle.
You’re…
***
“Leo…?” Hovering over me was… It was an annoying-looking princess. She blocked out the sweltering sun, letting her bright amber eyes become the only light between us. What was with that look on her face? Was my handsome mug disfigured that much? She was ready to shed tears on my behalf.
Imagine that. You arrived late to the party and started to cry about it, but despite everything, you still showed to help clean up the mess.
“Why…. Why are you here?”
I never had a chance to stop and think, but that was a good question, wasn't it? Why go this far for a family like us? For me? I had shoved you against a wall and spat acid in your face. You were the target of my misguided anger. We placed an immense burden on your shoulders and your aunt’s. And yet, you thought we—you thought I should wear wings. What did you see in me that was so deserving of your trust? Your faith? What about Seraph? Rector? What about the rest of your team—?
“Dumbass.”
I know, princess.
There was a war crying around us, with its tremors and endless devastation, yet Leo found a smile to give. It was the silliest, most unserious smile I’d ever seen, but for an instant, her smile froze the awful world and rendered me the eternal subject of its fascination. It reflected a version of me that didn’t exist, the sort of “me” that lived only in dreams and fantasies—it possessed the qualities I wished I had, the strength I never held, the futures I could never touch.
That “Alexander Shen” didn’t exist, but Leo believed he did.
She believed in the asshole laying on the ground.
“You think we’ll leave you here, Conqueror?” Leo said. “You’re an Angel. You’re stuck with us forever.”
An Angel, huh…?
You really believe a future like that exists for us, princess.
I heard voices. Using what little strength I had, I pushed off my elbows and got myself sitting. (“Hey, don’t push yourself—ah, dammit.”) In front of me was the strangest sight to wake up to: three icons of stupidity—an orthodox cultivator, a confused shield-bearer, and an esper with a dozen [Pylons]—fighting my mother and father. Chaos filled the empty space as [Skills] of all kinds were thrown around, and I couldn’t tell which side was winning.
Of course I’d see them now.
They could never leave me alone, even when I was at my worst.
Those idiots.
Leo laid a hand on my leg. “They refused to leave you alone. Don’t worry, I got Thea and your uncle out of here—”
[?▊█▋▋ ?▂▔█??▔█▎ ▍]
Something changed in Mom and Dad.
[▌?▍? ▎ ▁▋█▔▄??▔█▎ ▍]
[▊█▋▋ ▂▕▋▔█??▔▎ ??]
Before I saw what happened, Leo tackled me back to the ground, using her body to shield me from the blowback. Wind lashed at my hurting body, and a blanket of pebbles and gravel were thrown over our clothes. Through the smoke, I spotted three scattered swords hugging the asphalt, and their betters stood together at the center of the battlefield.
The Alternates sported more bleeding wounds last time I saw them—Dad even more so—but they were stubbornly relentless just like the rest of their kind.
“Shit!” Leo shot to her feet and drew [Twin Heavens]. “Stay back, Alex—! Alex?”
I couldn’t let this farce go on for any longer.
I couldn't stay on the ground anymore.
I... I can't turn my back to everyone.
I had to grow up.
So I stood, all of me, bleeding inside and out.
“Stay the hell down, idiot!” Victor yelled at me where he laid, weighed down by his armor.
Leo looked pissed, but she was letting her fear show through. “Now you decided to get up?! Alex—!”
“Thank you for everything, Leo.” I shambled forward, limping so badly that crawling would be faster, and passed the princess. “You’ve brought our crazy family this far and gave us something we desperately needed all this time."
Her jaw tightened. "Alex—"
"Leave nothing unsaid or undone." I muttered. "I try to live by that, so I'm doing what I should've done a long time ago."
Leo lowered her swords and let me pass.
In spite of four fresh Slayers, I was the only one Mom and Dad saw.
For the last time, they waited for their little boy, and he walked.
"...I hate this," I said, my voice cracking through each and every word. "Tragic endings run in our family. Doesn't matter what we do. We aren’t given fortunes by working hard. We aren't promised good things if our souls remain pure. No matter how much we sacrifice for our futures, life will take everything away in a heartbeat. So why do anything? Why... Why should we try? If life itself is against us, then why bother living?"
I glanced at my stupid-ass friends on the ground, looking at me as I was suffering a mental break. Victor, Chunhua, Kotone, the idiots who’d been bugging the strange corpo since the day they enrolled in Ordo University.
"I... I wasn't living. I wasn't alive. What did I do back then? Keep my head low, run if things get tough, avoid the shadows, find some inoffensive job—live out the rest of my days believing I acquired 'peace.' No, I couldn't even do that right. Do you think I was ever at peace? No, I was... I'm terrified. I am terrified. Of everything. Life won't give me that peace, I won't give myself that peace, but what the hell do I want then? The world doesn't want me to find happiness, and I'm fucking punished for trying."
I inhaled and tried my best to not fall apart.
I remembered.
"The world took Lyressa's memories from her, yet she's still chasing after her past self. The world showed Jin Tianyou weakness, and he'll rise above his family's ruined reputation. The world wanted Nathan Hyun to die, but Angels Guild continues on for humanity. The world stole my life from me..."
I...
I am not a good man. I don't have the means to protect everyone I love. I can't see a future that doesn't end bleakly. All roads for Alexander Shen will lead to tragedy.
But…
How many fictions have I told to myself and everyone I love?
How many bad endings have I envisioned?
How many times have I punished myself?
How many fantasies have I imagined of a better life?
How many people love me and want the best for me and say all these things about me—despite how much you beg them and tell them to stop and argue that they're wrong—what else can you do with yourself?
What else can you do other than believing in them? Just a little bit?
So I... I want to believe.
In everything.
From the beginning, Leo was right. She had always been right, and I never listened.
I rose my head and met the shadows of Bastien Romanos and Shen Xingyu. "So I'll take it. I'm taking my life back! I'll be the man you always wanted me to become! I'll be strong enough so nobody can steal from us! A life like that isn't impossible! A good ending is out there, somewhere! If it's us—if it's us!—we'll create a tomorrow where happiness lives!"
This is our story of happiness.
[Open your heart, Alexander.]
A bell rings, and an Angel receives his [Wings].
They bloomed from my spine, bold and glorious and in ivory, extending the length of my shadow. My body was lighter, and my feet were tickling the asphalt. I extended my right arm and felt the comfortable wrapping of the hilt of an elementless [Sword], ornate and carried the markings of the Demonic Cult, whispering to me possibilities of [Azure] and [Divine].
I flew, my blade pulled.
Mom and Dad remained where they were.
They had time to react.
They had time to move.
I reached them.
“To think…” Dad said, “...we would have a son like you.”
They allowed the [Sword] to slash through their bodies, spewing forth a fountain of gray blood that disappeared as soon as they touched the ground. I landed on the other side.
Their faces, which had been shrouded in gray, were completely visible. My mother and father.
Despite the different lives they’d lived, they were still the greatest parents in the world.
Those were their last words before, like the rest of the Alternates, their bodies turned to ash and left not a single trace.
I dispelled [Conviction] and [Demonblade] and faced everyone: my friends, Leo, and Althea and Uncle who were climbing out of the woodworks. As much as I wanted to laugh and say a quippy joke, it seemed we didn’t have the time.
A voyeur hated my sense of comedy. Black cars, SUVs, and vans burned rubber down the street. Agents. That’s why we hadn’t seen the eight-fourteens yet. Dwyer had been holding everyone back until the Alternates were killed, even if that probably meant our lives.
As international agents burst from their vehicles with drawn rifles and body armor, I still managed to muster a smile toward Thea and Uncle—all the way until my face was shoved onto the asphalt.
*
[Event Commission “Kidnapping at the Warehouse” has been completed]
[You have been paid 250,000ssp]
Event Commission: Kidnapping at the Warehouse
Pay: 250,000ssp
Description: No matter what Worldline you live in, Alexander, you always knew grief. So cry if you need to. Let it all out. Rage against the world and destroy everything that falls before your hands. You always had, so your heart wouldn't grow numb to the pain. And so, in many of those Worldlines, you became greater than your tears. In many of those Worldlines, you fought for a better life. Push on, then, and be happy.
[Two new Mementos have been created]
Conviction
Rank E
Holder: Angels Guild
Memento Type: Wings
Description: The [Memento] of Angels Guild, taking the form of angel wings. Everyone in your team has their own reason for joining: protection, the truth, a home. For you, it’s not so different: you’re fighting against the idea of a tragic ending—more than that, you’re fighting for a future brighter than the sun itself.
Special Effect: You are capable of flight.
Solitary Demonblade
Rank E
Holder: Leona Ryu
Memento Type: Sword
Description: The [Memento] of your Team Leader, taking the form of a demonic blade. She brought you into Angels Guild and helped your family that’s almost impossible to repay. Most of all, she sees something in you that you can’t necessarily see yourself. She might be crazy, but who knows? She could be scratching at gold. You’re willing to take that gamble.
Special Effect: N/A