Chapter 28
Niku felt his connection to everything start to disintegrate. The outside world. His friends. His people. His home. One by one, the darkness started eating away at them. The longer it pressed down, the less he was himself and the more...blank...he became.
I'm losing, he thought to himself. I'm losing and there's nothing I can do about it.
Except that wasn't exactly right.
There were two things that refused to be eaten away.
His mother.
And his brother.
Gwendolyn D'Avignon.
And Rone Varlamagne.
Family.
In that moment, they were the only things that were left. There was a strength that their memories gave him. Something that was as strong and constant as a mountain. They would not leave him. They would not abandon him.
He had been lied to his entire life by both his mother and his father. He knew though, through all the pain of finally coming to terms with the truth that they had done it because they loved him. They wanted to protect him. There was no malice in their intentions.
Just pure and simple love.
Rone, on the other hand, had come to Vitari in ignorance. He hadn't known the truth either. Yet, despite that, he still hadn't taken up arms against the Terraquois that sheltered him. Instead, he had made it his mission to try and bring about peace. It had been hard for him. Niku himself had made it that much more difficult. To Rone, however, that didn't matter. Despite opposition from every direction, he stayed and he learned.
Because of love, Niku realized. Love of Purga and...
"Keiara," he whispered aloud.
It was a painful truth. It burned his heart to know that his own love for Keiara would never be returned. That she loved Rone and not him. But he could no longer hate Rone for it. He could no longer hate his brother.
Or the Rooks.
Hate was what gave Blak the power to overwhelm Purga and everyone on it. It all came back to that. The chasm between the two races had provided the exact conditions needed for breeding that evil thing.
No more. The only hate he harbored now was the hate he had for Blak and the evil that had been unleashed. He had to fight back. He had to get out of this place.
He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.
Then, all of a sudden, he let out a huge, bellowing roar of pure power and rage. He pulled his knees up to underneath his stomach. He slammed both hands on the ground and pushed as hard as he could.
The darkness pushed down on top of him. Niku could feel it like a hundred ton weight on his back. His muscles popped out along his body and the tendons in his neck stood out. His teeth ground against each other painfully but he wouldn't let himself really feel it. He pushed it to the back of his mind like everything else and continued to push. To just PUSH! To get up.
Have to get up! he screamed at himself. GET UP!
Centimeter by centimeter, inch by inch, he managed to get some headway against the darkness. He got a foot underneath him. Then he got the other foot underneath himself. He pushed with all the strength he could, screaming and yelling the whole time. He had a moment of triumph and joy when he finally managed to get to his feet. He'd thought he'd done it. He thought he'd won.
Then the darkness bore down on him with more weight than ever. There was a second when he managed to hold it at bay. His entire body shook and every muscle seemed to strain to the point of just snapping. He tried so hard to hold on but the tibias and fibulas in both his legs suddenly shattered and he collapsed to the ground in agony. He managed to look down at his legs and saw the bones there poking out through his skin.
He cried out as the darkness rushed in and crushed him back to the ground. He wanted to get back up. He wanted to so badly but he hurt. His legs hurt. His muscles hurt. He tried to breathe and couldn't. His eyes felt like they were seconds away from exploding out of his head. He could feel and taste blood pouring out of his mouth and nose.
It was the end. The end of him. The end of everything.
He saw the faces of everyone he'd known in his life. They flew past his mind so rapidly he could barely make them out. One after the other. They were, he realized, a reminder. A reminder of the people he would be letting down if he gave up.
No, he said as he ground his teeth together. No.
"I will not lose," he screamed. He yelled so loudly that his throat felt like it shredded itself. He gagged on the blood that suddenly filled the back of his mouth.
His body was in a lot of pain, but something in the furthest reaches of his mind convinced him that the pain was not real. That the blood wasn't real. His broken legs were not real. This place was not real. It was trying to crush him, physically and mentally, but it could only do it if Niku allowed it to happen. If he succumbed. He wasn't sure if he was right, but he was pretty sure he was. It was confirmed a second later when the blood suddenly disappeared from his mouth and his broken, shattered legs healed themselves. The pain went next and for the first time since he got stuck inside the world between worlds, he felt victorious. The despair and hopelessness that emanated from the darkness almost made him forget what those feelings felt like.
The pressure of the darkness quadrupled and squashed Niku to the ground again. This time, however, the insidious voices were back but they were different this time. Faces, clawed hands, agonized screams, burning touches all accompanied those voices and to Niku, they were all too real. Their clawed hands dug into his flesh.
Their agonized screams flayed his mind. Their touch burned his skin with heat and intense, freezing cold all at the same time.
It was the most painful thing he'd ever had to endure. It was a torture that was evil and terrible enough to drive anyone insane.
But Niku just laughed.
He laughed and laughed.
He laughed because he could sense the darkness's own desperation now.
And its fear.
Niku got up on his hands and knees again, still laughing.
Then his eyes exploded with bright green light. It radiated out of him like a bomb blast and lit up the world between worlds with an intense green glow.