Six months had passed since Kaiser had first set foot in this cabin lost in the heart of the forest. Six months of lessons, of ditations...
His silver hair reached down to the small of his back, and he tied it with a leather strap so it would not hinder his movents. His body, though still covered with silver scars testifying to the damage caused by the Sundering Eclipse, had regained so of its forr vigor.
That evening, Diavolo was waiting for him in front of the cabin with an expression Kaiser had never seen on his face.
"Last lesson, Baby boy," he announced in a voice without emphasis.
Kaiser looked at the staff, then raised his eyes to Diavolo. "The last one?"
"The last one." Diavolo pointed to the forest behind him, that mass of trees and darkness stretching as far as the eye could see. "You are going to cross the forest, alone..."
Kaiser felt his heart accelerate. The forest that separated Yggdrasil from Babylon was known to be one of the most dangerous areas on the continent. For six months, he had never explored its depths, contenting himself with the imdiate surroundings of the cabin. Diavolo had always forbidden him from venturing any further.
"How much ti do I have?"
"All night." Diavolo crossed his arms. "If you are not out by sunrise, I will co and get you. And you will have failed."
"And if I fail?"
Diavolo shrugged with calculated indifference. "Then you will stay here, to start over when night falls... Because if you are not capable of crossing this forest, you are not capable of facing what awaits you outside."
Kaiser did not answer imdiately.
"Any advice?" he asked.
Diavolo displayed a smile that Kaiser did not see, because he had already turned his back. "Do not forget what I taught you. And we will et again at Yggdrasil..."
Kaiser plunged into the forest without looking back.
Darkness enveloped him imdiately, not gradually as a natural twilight would have done, but brutally, as if the light had withdrawn from the world in a single movent.
He took a few steps, then stopped to let his eyes adjust, but his eyes did not adjust. The darkness was total, absolute, an absence of light so complete that it seed to have a physical consistency, like black water in which he was advancing.
He moved forward cautiously, placing one foot after the other, probing the ground with a staff to avoid roots and crevices. After a few minutes, he heard a sound. It was a murmur, indistinct, that seed to co from all directions at once. He stopped, listened, and the murmur transford into voices.
"Kaiser."
His first na, whispered by several mouths, so close, others distant, so high-pitched, others deep. He recognized the voice of his mother.
He recognized the voice of Kleopatra... of Ariana... and even that of Ruby...
"And what else? Auditory illusions of a fool?"
He continued to advance. The voices did not stop, but he learned to ignore them, to treat them like the sound of the wind in the branches. It was at that mont that the second distortion manifested itself.
A shadow moved on his left, just at the edge of his peripheral vision. He turned his head, but the shadow had disappeared. Another shadow moved on his right, then behind him, then in front. They were everywhere, these moving shadows, and they seed to get closer every ti he stopped looking at them directly.
He quickened his pace, but the shadows quickened with him. He stopped, and the shadows stopped. He then understood that these shadows did not co from outside. They were generated by his own mind, by the saturation of mana that disturbed his senses and made him see things that did not exist.
He closed his eyes. He advanced like this, with his eyelids closed, for what seed like an eternity.
His other senses sharpened to compensate: he felt the damp moss under his feet, he breathed in the sll of sap and earth, he heard the rustling of the phosphorescent vines that parted as he passed.
The voices faded, the shadows disappeared, and for the first ti since entering the forest, he found a semblance of calm.
It was at that mont that the ground gave way beneath him.
He toppled forward, opened his eyes by reflex, and saw that he had almost walked into a crevice two ters wide, a fissure in the ground that descended toward invisible depths. He recoiled hastily, his heart pounding in his chest, and it was while stepping back that he heard the hiss.
"Why did you kill , Kaiser?"
"Huh?" Kaiser was shocked to see this silhouette here again.
"Jessica..." murmured Kaiser.
Her dull, tear-filled eyes fixed Kaiser with unbearable intensity. She was only a hallucination, a fragnt of what Kaiser considered irreparable mistakes.
"Why, Kaiser?" she asked. "Why did you do this to ?"
Kaiser closed his eyes, but the image of the young girl did not disappear. His mories rose to the surface with cruel clarity. He saw again the mont when he had found her, alone and vulnerable, fleeing the mockery of the nobles. He rembered the softness of his own voice when he had promised to protect her, to make her a Paragon.
"You loved ... at least, that’s what you made believe," continued the apparition, taking another step toward him. "You got everything you wanted from . My body, my trust... my virginity."
"This is not against you, Jessica...."
The young woman’s face tensed. "I stole those docunts for you, I betrayed my own father because I believed you were my only refuge. And in return, you used that evidence to designate as the only culprit in front of him. You watched my father banish , you watched my sister lissa laugh at my fall, and you did not say a word."
For him, Jessica was only an effective tool that, once its mission was accomplished, beca an unnecessary complication. A naive child who, if left alive, would inevitably co back to haunt him. In addition to already being unscrupulous, the Level-Headed skill had greatly atrophied his emotions.
"You ordered that woman to kill ," said Jessica, her voice breaking. "I was walking alone in the dark, still hoping that you would co looking for ..."
The image of Jessica’s decapitation by Eleanor ca back to his mory. He had stayed there, observing the scene with detached attention. At that precise mont, he had even told himself that there was nothing like a romantic date after a murder.
"I am unscrupulous," admitted Kaiser, addressing himself as much as the shadow. "I saw only the goal... all that had taught that weakness was a cri. And you were weak, Jessica. Too kind for this cruel world."
The hallucination approached. "Was my life worth less than a tal mine? Did my devotion an nothing? You took my virginity, you took my honor, and you took my last breath just so you would not have ’unnecessary problems’. I was even ready to be only your mistress... As long as—"
"Jessica... I do not regret killing you that night..." he began, his voice regaining so of its past coldness. "I do not regret it because it allowed to obtain the power I need today."
"But..." he added, and for the first ti, a nuance of sincere regret pierced his tone, "if I had to do it again, I would not do it." thinking perhaps of Ruby, of Kara, Kleopatra or those other won who had eventually co to an sothing to him beyond simple strategic utility... And so of whom he had even ended up losing.
He knew that his words changed nothing about the past. Jessica was already dead...
"I am not a perfect person and I make mistakes... But you always have to assu these choices and face their consequences."
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