Angel Monarch

Damien's head felt both consumed with pain, and strangely tranquil. Like he just wake up from a deep slumber, which was slowly devouring him.

With a deep sigh, he opened his freezing blue eyes. He stared up at the empty sky with confusion. Wasn't he at the bottom level of the facility a moment ago?

His head still wasn't right. Most of his senses weren't working properly, only his eyes and ears sent useful information to his brain.

From the right, he heard gentle, silent, joyful sobs, while from his left a clear sigh of relief reached his ear.

With a groan of pain, he managed to move his head and glance to his right. Before he even recognized the woman, through the blur in his vision, Damien's hand was already reaching for her.

She gently took his hand and lifted it to her face. A wide smile lighted Agnes's face as tears ran rampant down her cheek.

"Why are you crying?" He whispered, with his deep raspy voice.

Agnes's eyes turned sad again, but she pushed all the doubts out of her mind before they overwhelmed her.

"It doesn't matter now… I'm just glad you're alright…" She said, then turned towards Sera. Her face turned solemn suddenly, and she bowed her head. "Thank you for saving him… I owe you everything…"

Sera just shrugged and grinned down at Damien's confused, terrified expression.

"Oh, you heard that right! You aren't dead yet, but came very close to it… No, that's actually a lie. You were as dead as one can get, but don't worry, I fixed your broken heart issue!"

While continuing to smile, Sera pointed at Damien's chest, where the crystal glowed even more brightly. He glanced down as well, and with an exclamation of surprise, he tried to jump to his feet.

He managed to sit up before falling back to the rocky ground, squirming and holding onto his chest. Pain consumed his mind, originating from the crystal in his chest.

"Hey! Dumbass! If you want to kill yourself again, you can go ahead, but I won't make you another crystal! Don't worry, the pain will probably pass, but do try to keep movements to a minimum until your body gets used to its new heart!"

Sera's new speech pattern brought so much surprise to Damien that his heartache immediately stopped.

He continued staring at the angelic woman with narrowed eyes. Then he eventually looked around the area, and finally laid eyes on the gore surrounding them. He also didn't miss a similar gore covering Sera's body.

"What did you do?"

Sera began typing on her watch, then looked at Damien with a raised eyebrow.

"I saved both your asses, that's what I did… You should've left with the others, using the time my lo-… Using the time Bran bought… Now if you'll excuse me, I need to order our evacuation!"

Before either could've said anything, Sera stood up and walked off, hiding her face, even though the shaking of her shoulders showed clear signs of her pain.

While she sobbed silently, guilt took hold of Agnes's heart… It seemed unfair that the person who saved Agnes's love couldn't do the same with her own lover.

"Life is truly cruel and has a fucked up sense of humor…" Whispered Damien, then stayed silent for a few minutes.

His body slowly began feeling better, and with the help of Agnes, he sat up, with his back propped against a large boulder.

While propped up, he could see the killing field with a lot more clarity. His eyes scanned every corpse and didn't miss the only human body in the mass of dead monsters.

"Is… Is that?…"

He couldn't even finish the sentence. His hands began trembling as tears welled in his eyes.

Agnes looked behind her, and upon seeing Harold's broken corpse, she just turned back and nodded.

That was all Damien needed.

With a deep heaviness clouding his heart, Damien began crying. His tears were a mix of joy, sadness, and exhaustion.

His lover gently guided his head and let him cry on her shoulder. She hummed a calming melody while her hand stroked his long, white hair.

His emotional state was a complete mess. He was glad Sera had ended Harold, but he also felt sad, since he wanted to kill him, deliver justice… Or at least revenge…

He, of course, knew this would've never worked. Harold was simply too powerful and had too many tricks up his sleeve.

Tears continued running down his cheeks as he stared towards the sky. For a moment, in his blurred vision, he could've sworn he saw the form of his late wife and child.

A smile spread across his face just by remembering them as humans. He still had nightmares every night. He dreamed of what Harold did to them, the monsters he created for his own amusement.

But as soon as he saw them human again, he felt the heavy weight pressing down his shoulders since he could remember, finally lift away.

Damien took a deep breath, then reached out and summoned a single Item. Agnes watched with wide eyes as a pair of rings appeared in his palm. Both were golden, with some decorative embellishments, but pretty normal-looking for an Item.

His hands trembled just by seeing the rings again.

He blinked once more, and now he could see his late wife's ghost-like form a few meters away. She looked down at Damien with a gentle smile, then nodded once before disappearing.

Damien interpreted the ambiguous experience—a dying hallucination or something much stranger—as guidance.

He closed his hand around the two rings. A cold aura surrounded it, and as he opened his hands, the metal rings broke apart.

"Didn't you want to keep those rings? To remember her?" Asked Agnes in a whisper, bringing Damien's attention back to her.

A wide, slightly sad smile touched his lips as he released the fragments, and with them, the past.

"I don't need a piece of jewelry to remember them… My memory is more than enough to recall all the happy times we had… They are gone, and justice was already served… I had to let them go as well, so they could finally rest in peace…"

He stayed silent for a few moments, then his smile turned sly.

"I also think I'm ready to move on. I'm sorry I never reciprocated your feelings, but that was simply impossible until now. I'm also sorry about how stupid I acted, and how much danger I brought to your life… I love you, Agnes…"

Agnes tried to hide it and downplay it, but her grin was impossible not to witness, but then her smile faded as she recalled the past hour.

"I understand… Rage consumed your mind, but promise me you will never do something like that again. You dying nearly killed me as well. When Harold shot you, I just knelt down beside you, and waited for him to pull the trigger again… I didn't want to live without you… I love you too, Damien…"

They stared into each other's eyes, then slowly move closer, until their lips nearly touched. An exhausted groan, followed by Sera's voice, broke the moment.

"Uh, finally… Come on, lovebirds! Let's get back home, shall we?"

A portal opened nearby as Sera spoke, and with a cunning smile, she motioned for them to enter first.

"I think she might've became a bit too talkative… I liked when she silently contemplated everything, and used less sarcasm." Said Damien, while Agnes pulled him up on his feet.

"I heard that!" Shouted Sera in fake outrage, while Agnes just giggled and helped Damien through the portal.

Sera moved behind, but just before entering the portal, she held up her hand and snapped her finger.

A sudden fire appeared and consumed the small island, melting and vaporizing the rocks.

Smiling, Sera entered the portal, letting the island succumb to the ocean's waves.

The portal led to the room, which held the Aegis System. Every survivor of the initial attack now rested there.

Sera's smile turned into a thin line as she looked upon the dead. Most of them survived, but the number of deaths still felt crushing.

All the Black Crusaders laid dead. Jill was one of the first victims of Amygdala's sadism, and she took immense pleasure in killing the rest.

Half the Ouroboros Cohort didn't make it either, and Eula, one of the twins, died too. Her sister, Joan, sobbed so hard so fell unconscious.

A few others only gotten injured, like Adam and Mary. Both got beaten near death, but with Bea's quick assist, they managed to pull through.

As Sera stepped through, everyone's eyes went to her. Somehow, between all the dead and injured, she looked the worst.

Gore still covered her armorless body, with only a few ragged pieces of clothing, saving her decency. Her eyes looked depressed, carrying incalculable pain.

Even though no injury was visible on her body, in her soul, a human-sized wound bled constantly, unable to heal.

She glanced at everyone inside the room, and right now, she wished to have her emotionless outlook again. Without it, she couldn't hide the pain from showing on her face and in her voice.

"Congratulations everyone… The war is over… We won…"

Her voice held more suffering, she wished to show, and after taking a deep breath, she walked out of the room without saying another word.

Behind her, no sounds of celebrations echoed. Only the sound of death existed, surrounded by the guilt of the survivors.

As Sera walked, her hands trembled, and the pressure increased in her mind. Her heart ached as her steps became faster.

She ran out of the building and flew into the sky until she reached her mansion.

Tears ran down her face. Her breathing turned shallow and her vision went red from rage.

She landed heavily into the muddy ground, rolling on the ground for a few meters. She then slowly climbed back to her feet and stared at the cloudless sky.

Her eyes began glowing with golden flames, and she opened her mouth wide, releasing all her pent up hurt in the form of a loud scream.

The two golden flames in her eyes suddenly shot out in a line. It went on until it reached the Aegis System, which managed to stop the flames from escaping.

Sera continued to scream and release all her energy until there was nothing left.

She continued kneeling in the mud as her gaze fell upon her hands. Her body began shaking, shoulders quivering. Tears landed in her palms as she sobbed. With all the pent up anger gone, only sadness remained.

Each breath became heavier until her sobs turned into something more sinister… Laughter… Mad laughter…