"Haah... Haah..."
Standing amidst the wreckage left behind by the monstrous wave, Kurian struggled to catch his breath before joking, "¡Vaya, vaya! Seven minutes, is it? Seven minutes.... AND I AM OUT OF DRIVE ALREADY!"
A rough, guttural roar escaped him in frustration as he looked down at his trembling hands, disgust churning inside Him at the frailty of his own flesh.
Labored breaths ripped from his lungs, and not even at the absolute end of his strength in his previous life had he ever been this weak.
"It's humiliating," he muttered bitterly, seeing his current condition as nothing short of disgraceful.
"Haah." Forcing himself back to his feet, he ventured farther into the Tacet Discords' dwelling before making his way back to camp several hours later.
He cast his sword aside and let out a slow breath, giving himself a self-mocking chuckle before remarking, "How quaint, and how disgraceful. I never believed I would resort to projecting anger to search for that drive within me."
A faintly subdued expression settled over his face as a hollow laugh slipped from his lips, his attempt to reclaim that 'Lost Spark' proving futile. Though his psyche refused to acknowledge it, his body remained brutally honest. It was exhausted.
"Desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures," He remarked before steadying his mind, abandoning the act of 'emulating' anger in his search for that lost spark.
"Resonance is indeed something mysterious and fragile." He let out a dry chuckle. "I have neither coughed nor spilled a drop of blood, yet I feel this weak. I wonder... if my body had been cleaved diagonally from shoulder to waist, barely held together by a single tendon, would that have felt better than this?"
"Where is your motivation... That's what you used to tell me, right, Master?" Kurian couldn't help but remember his teacher, Isshin's, face as he closed his eyes and muttered, "I hope this war and the struggle end quickly."
As he drifted into slumber, the small blood-soaked bell, the one he had once worn during the time he wreaked havoc within Kraven's lair, swayed gently in the wind and let out a soft chime, making him furrow his brows before opening his eyes.
"???"
Yet when he opened them, he was no longer inside his tent but standing within a grayish fog suspended in a white abyss. He looked around and attempted to flare his Resonance, only to realize it had been suppressed to an extreme degree.
Just then, he heard "His" voice. "Oya, isn't it Freddie-boy?"
"—!!?"
Swoosh, Flip, Thud.
In a single fluid exchange of movements, Kurian's hands reacted instinctively as he and the other party found themselves locked in a deadlock, both executing a basic sumo takedown.
"T-Teacher?" Kurian asked, a little bewildered, but as though looking beyond his confusion, the faceless visage concealed behind the gray fog spoke in annoyance. "Where is your motivation?"
As if fully aware of the problem plaguing Kurian, the man exerted more force, to which Kurian responded with equal strength. However, he was clearly beginning to lose until the faceless figure uttered, "Is that what all the Field Marshal of Humanity has to offer?"
As though those words had cast a spell, Kurian felt a surge of vigor course through him. His eyes narrowed slightly as the brilliant stars within them turned cold, their radiance smothered into quiet stillness.
He forced the struggle back into an even deadlock before pouring out more strength and shouting, "¡Vamos!"
Thud.
He managed to take down the faceless entity that possessed his teacher's physique.
As soon as he brought the entity down, the gray fog dispersed. Before Kurian now stood a man. It was himself, Ferdinand Franz Schumann, the man he once was.
"Our last encounter was perhaps nearly two decades ago," the subconscious psyche spoke, as if aware of something far more terrifying than what the eye could immediately perceive.
"Do you remember our vow to humanity?" the subconscious psyche asked, and at last, Kurian recalled the declaration.
> "Today, I, Ferdinand Franz Schumann, hereby promise that Kings, soldiers, workers, and demonic vermin alike shall bear witness to Ferdinand's glory. From this day onward, I will display such valor that, for as long as the earth remains, history shall praise it for eternity."
"Hmm, follow me for a while," the psyche said.
Kurian followed.
They arrived at a dilapidated cave, where Ferdinand saw something he immediately recognized.
"The Pale Sakura."
Kurian muttered as he looked at the tree, unable to understand why it was being shown to him. "Why are you showing me this tree?"
It was a simple sakura tree with a pale trunk. Nothing more than a strange mutation that had stripped the bark of its color.
Yet the psyche answered with something far more devastating. "You remember the most important details, yet you forgot the detail more important than the most important of all."
"More important than the most important?" Kurian paused.
'Is this a koan?' He wondered.
Then the psyche answered, "Do you remember what I told you two decades ago?"
"Leniency and abandonment," Kurian replied, before asking, "But... I believe I was not lenient."
"You certainly were not lenient, but you still abandoned." The psyche answered, to which Kurian asked, "What have I abandoned?"
"Your faith, Ferdinand. Your faith. You abandoned it long ago, and that is the exact reason this predicament has befallen you." The psyche's voice remained cold. "You abandoned the axis, the compass that once gave you your sense of direction."
"I... I don't know what you're saying." Kurian muttered, his voice cracking faintly. "My compass... wasn't it the 'Mortal Sense'?"
"No, Freddie, no. It was never 'Mortal Sense.' Though it is a fantastic technique, there was a precursor to that, which you have ignorantly mistaken for your compass. Do you remember Bai Ying?"
"???"
"Recall what he told you."
Kurian remembered Bai Ying's final words.
> "I wish to be the author of my own destiny, and I have written my destiny to be someone who protects their loved ones."
"If you have recalled those words, then now recall what you promised your teacher," the psyche urged.
Another promise surfaced within Kurian's mind.
> "I will do my very best, Teacher. I will protect humanity, fight for it, bleed for it, and even die for it."
"Now, recall your true vow to humanity."
At last, the darkness lingering within Kurian's eyes began to clear as he remembered the vow that had always defined him.
> "All of humanity is my family. My elders, my brothers, my sisters, my children. They are all part of my family, and it is my duty, as a son, a sibling, and a father, to offer my service to them."
"That is your true vow, Freddie," the psyche answered, its voice turning faintly melancholic, almost poignant. "You are an exceptionally strong man, Freddie. But strength used only for oneself is never enough."
"Selfishness... is that what you're accusing me of?" Kurian asked, his brows knitting together. "But... as far as I remember, everything I've done has been for my family."
"Do you honestly believe it was for the Ghost Hounds? For the Information Guild? For the companions you've grown so fond of?" the psyche asked before coldly continuing. "No, Freddie. For the past two decades, you have fought for nothing but yourself."
Kurian's expression stiffened.
"If you had truly fought for those people, you would never have become so attached to them," the psyche continued.
"You have confronted countless horrors over these past twenty years. You even crossed blades with five Threnodians." The psyche added, though there was no hint of awe in its voice.
"Though those battles rekindled a faint echo of your former resolve, tell me this: in all these years, have you defeated a single Threnodian who could stand beside even the weakest of the Demon Lords?" The psyche spat, and Kurain could not argue.
Afterall, if one were to compare the two, the Threnodians are what happens when human emotion becomes a monster. Demon Lords are what happens when reality learns how to speak.
The psyche did not wait for Kurain to dwell on the past, and continued.
"Do you remember the Bride Yume? The Demon Lord who governed the symbolism of Reverie—hallucination and daydream? She could blur reality as though the world itself had fallen into a dream," the psyche asked.
"Do you remember the 'Sunmelter,' Iblis, who bore the symbolism of Calor—the transformative heat? The one who wielded the 'flames of vicissitude,' and was able to emulate heat so intense that even a certain death written in destiny could be challenged," the psyche made Kurian reminisce about these horrors.
The psyche further explained how Iblis bent destiny into uncertainty.
"He would project that heat toward a defined fate and melt it down just enough that it could no longer be anchored as a bona fide outcome, shifting it into something apocryphal. In doing so, certainty itself was dissolved into uncertainty, until even whether he would die or not became unresolved."
Its gaze remained fixed upon Kurian.
"You fought those horrors before, Freddie. You stood against beings that rewrote reality itself. Yet now..." The psyche's voice sharpened into quiet mockery. "Now you struggle against mere embodiments of war, assimilation, and erasure."
Silence settled between them.
"So tell me, Freddie... What changed? What do you believe has changed?" the psyche finally asked.
"My scale of view," Kurian answered.
A pregnant silence lingered between them before the psyche's lips curled upward. "And?"
Kurian paused slightly. "My interpretation of those views."
"And what else?" the psyche asked again.
"My identity," Kurian answered.
"Previously," Kurian continued, "I had to view everyone as equal and with utmost impartiality. But now, with some groups, I forge bonds, while others I treat as enemies."
"I began following orders, taking commissions, not because they were simply things I had to do, but because they were things I wanted to do. I have... forgotten to ask myself, 'Is this truly something I should be doing?'" Kurian concluded.
"The scale of your view widened, yet your compass narrowed. Your interpretations multiplied, yet your direction fractured. And your identity… Freddie, it did not evolve—it contracted." The psyche said softly, its gaze unwavering.
"You did not grow beyond your vow. You drifted away from it, piece by piece, until only preference remained, dressed in the shape of purpose." The psyche replied cynically. "And that... is the reason behind your current weakness."
"You were once a giver, a torchbearer—someone who guided humanity forward. But like a blind man abandoning his stick the moment he believes he can see, you discarded that torch, Freddie."
"It was never truly passed on. Physically, perhaps. But spiritually, it remained yours—and you let it go." The psyche coldly declared. "Think back. When someone was wrong, you once opposed them because it was right. Now… you oppose them only because you believe it is right."
"If I want my family to be happy, is that wrong?" Kurian asked.
"Wishing your family happiness, and wanting them to be happy, are not the same, Kurian," the psyche replied.
At this point, Kurian's eyes slowly cleared. "Ah… I see. I was a guardian… but now, mired in the sweetness of transient affections, have dematured, and like my Resonance ability, I have degenerated—becoming something lesser than a guardian."
He looked up, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. "Yes… I have been desalado—unwinged. Fallen from a guardian into a man ruled by preference."
To be continued...