Rain fell over Septondra once more.

Karo, as stained with blood as he was weary, raised his eyes to the sky and savored the miracle.

It was the first time in his life he had felt rain.

The first time an entire continent had felt it in nearly a hundred years.

"Happy now, swordsman?" the two-headed creature before him asked reproachfully.

An Avatar of Curses.

An Alpha Demonius.

"He should be, Sche. It's the last thing he'll ever accomplish," the second head replied, sounding somewhat more foolish, yet no less intimidating. "Destroying an Anten Crystal. What an idiot. Doesn't he know our power was sealed inside it? Doesn't he realize all he did was make us stronger?"

"This isn't my first time fighting one of your kind," Karo said.

He spoke each word slowly, never taking his eyes off the rain as the cold water ran across his face.

"Don't tell me..."

"Zeder, be quiet. It's obviously him," the first head interrupted ". The Cursed Swordsman. Tolmoch's offspring."

"I am no kin to that demon" Karo snapped.

Hearing that name enraged him even more than hearing his voice.

"And yet you wield him with such pride." The creature sneered. "Humans are nothing but lies."

"Lies! Let's eat him, Sche!"

Karo settled into his stance.

His infamous Tolmoch-Blade, adorned with a flame-shaped ornament along the dull side near its tip, rested before him.

He was tired.

Very tired.

But he was ready.

He had known destroying the Anten Crystal would not be the end but only the beginning of the hardest part of his task. He had learned that before... With Gezelomakia, the Avatar of the Curse of Fire.

And there were still two more left.

Schezeder—the name both heads shared—began dragging its grotesque body forward.

Its many legs, each shaped like a human hand, pulled its belly across the rain-soaked surface of the tower. It wasn't fast enough.

Karo appeared behind it.

Without giving it the slightest opening, he severed both heads in a single slash.

He took a deep breath. Turning his back on the collapsing body, he sheathed his blade and looked up at the rain once more.

"Have you already grown arrogant?" the sinister voice of his sword asked inside his mind.

"Do you truly believe an Alpha Demonius can be slain so easily?"

"No."

"Then why turn your back on it?"

With the speed of a Marked, Karo drew the Tolmoch-Blade and blocked a whip of flesh made of tendons and twisted limbs as it lashed out from the convulsing corpse.

"He cut my face, Sche! It hurts!"

"Quiet, Zeder! This is your fault. Whose job was it to watch that flank? Yours, you idio—!"

Karo cut the creature off by lunging forward once again and slashing across its face.

It felt strange. He couldn't feel the usual resistance of bone and muscle beneath his blade. Yes, the Tolmoch-Blade possessed a demonic edge. Even so, he should have felt something. Cutting Schezeder was like cutting through butter.

He dodged two more attacks from limbs erupting from the mass of flesh the monster became with every convulsion. He managed to sever one of the flesh whips and heard one of the heads shriek in pain.

He blocked several more attacks while trying to reposition himself for another strike at that head. That was when he noticed the severed piece of flesh writhing across the ground like a dying snake back toward the creature's body.

Karo leaped back, putting some distance between himself and the creature to assess the situation.

Schezeder gave him no quarter. Its reach was far too great.

He cut through flesh and dodged as best he could.

It kept regenerating.

During an opening, while the two heads had gone back to insulting each other, he gathered energy into the Tolmoch-Blade and unleashed it in a ranged slash that cleaved the demon in two and carved a deep gash into the tower floor.

This time the two masses of flesh remained apart for no more than three seconds. With a violent leap, they fused together again.

As they did, dozens of needles burst from the creature's body, shooting toward the swordsman, who watched the spectacle in disbelief.

Caught off guard, Karo failed to avoid a couple of them. They struck his leg, piercing his calf.

He sliced the needle in half, but the fragments still embedded in his flesh came alive. They softened and began wrapping around his leg, driving themselves into his flesh again and again.

Karo tried to tear them off with one hand, but the writhing, shapeless masses wouldn't let go. They kept burrowing deeper.

He had no choice but to cut them away with his sword, risking cutting himself as well.

During that distraction, Schezeder lashed out again.

This time the attack struck his right shoulder. His sword arm.

Karo cut the flesh whip away as quickly as he could. Not quickly enough.

The remaining flesh still clinging to him wrapped itself around his arm, just as the fragments had done to his leg, tightening around his elbow.

Before Karo could react, the mass contracted violently. So did the bones trapped inside it.

Karo cried out in pain.

The two heads answered with disturbing, macabre laughter.

"We warned you, swordsman," Sche said as the creature approached. "You may have defeated our younger brother, but water is stronger than fire."

"Can we eat him now?"

"Not yet, Zeder. Let's enjoy his suffering a little longer."

Karo fell to one knee as another mass of flesh coiled around his forearm and repeated the process.

This time, it forced him to let go of his sword.

"And you should be grateful you're dying by our hands," Sche continued, now almost breathing in his face. "Had it been Milistrara... Oh, she truly knows torture. She would've kept you alive for a thousand years just to make you suffer."

"Brother! I want to eat him!"

Karo tried to stand, but more tentacles were already wrapping around both of his legs.

Was this the end?

All that training. All that pain. All those prophecies.

Had he endured all that suffering only to destroy two Curses?

The tentacles finished coiling around his right leg and twisted it completely.

The pain never reached him. Another pain, far deeper, drowned it out.

The pain of having failed.

The pain of wasting an entire lifetime.

He would never see Kawa again.

He would never see Tenodecia again.

But at least he had brought the rain back to his homeland.

He would've loved to see what Septondra would become, but—

"Accept who you are, once and for all. Let me take control," Tolmoch's voice said inside his head ". Accept that you're nothing on your own. Everything you've accomplished, you've accomplished because of me. Let me take care of this."

"N-No..."

"Accept that your destiny is to destroy everything... Or you'll die."

The pain was too much.

The pain in his body.

The pain in his heart.

And so, just as he felt his life slipping away, he spoke.

"I accept."

------------------------------------------------------------------

"And... that's it?" Cat asked, dropping the pages onto the table in frustration.

"Well..." Mica rubbed the back of his neck. "That's as far as I got before I fell asleep."

"You know," Hugo began, still holding the pages in front of his face, "I get the whole hero burden and moral responsibility thing... But don't you think having your leg twisted around would hurt way more than the pain of failing?"

Cat covered her face with one hand, unable to suppress a smile. Mica simply stared at him in disbelief.

Hugo took another bite of his sandwich and continued.

"I mean, I know I'm not a real hero, but I have moral responsibilities too. Like school. Or at least that's what my mom says. And honestly, I think breaking a leg would hurt a lot more than failing a test.

I mean, I've never broken one, but just thinking about what happened in Sarah's game left me traumatized."

He rubbed his leg once again.

"Is that seriously all you two have to say?"

"Mica, you know it pains me to admit Hugo is right about anything..."

Cat sighed.

"...but I kind of agree this time. I understand the sense of duty, but comparing it directly to physical injuries... maybe..."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. I'll take that part out. But I want you to talk about the whole chapter. I stayed up until three in the morning writing it."

"Well..." Cat tilted her head ". I wouldn't exactly call it the whole chapter."

"Fine. I fell asleep. Okay? But after that comes Necro Karo. I've already told you about that part. When he lets the sword demon possess him. What I actually wanted to know is what you thought of the enemy, Schezeder."

"I liked him." Hugo finished the last bite of his sandwich ". I like that one of the heads is kind of dumb."

"So what is he, exactly?" Cat asked ". A slime or something?"

"Not exactly. Remember I told you I'd been stuck on this fight for a while? Well, I finally figured it out last night. I told you Sarah's description of what it felt like to cut through the goblins' bodies was incredible, right?"

"Better than her description of the goblins themselves, that's for sure," Hugo joked ". They looked more like gnolls. How did she even come up with furry goblins? And orange ones!"

"You should see the ones in

Final Fantasy XIII

," Cat interrupted with a laugh ". They look like donuts with wheels."

"Hey, don't get sidetracked..."

"Yes, Mica, we get it." Cat's smile faded ". Her description of the sensation gave you the idea for how the creature works. But that doesn't change the fact that you stopped right in the middle of the chapter. Now I'm just frustrated." She shrugged. "Then again... maybe that's a good thing. The cliffhanger works."

"Besides," Hugo said, returning to his earlier point, "going back to the whole hero thing... Isn't it kind of weird that Karo loses that easily?"

"No, Hugo." Mica folded his arms ". That's called realism."

"Oh, absolutely." Hugo nodded with exaggerated seriousness ". Super realistic, the guy talking to his demon sword."

With a hint of anger, Mica stood up and walked out of the classroom, ignoring Hugo's apology that he was only joking and Cat's plea for him not to get upset.

It frustrated him that his friends could never take his hobby seriously. It had always been like that.

He trusted them because they were his best friends and their tastes were almost identical. But whenever he wanted honest criticism of his book because...

As he wandered down the hallway, lost in thought, he bumped into someone turning the corner and nearly fell to the floor.

"Sorry, I was just— Oh. It's you."

Mica recognized the chubby blond boy with his hair sticking straight up.

"What was your name again? Yesterday Sarah didn't let us—"

"I came to tell you Master called another session for today," the boy interrupted before turning his back on him.

"For now, it's better if you keep calling me Cleric," he added as he walked away.

Mica watched him leave, dumbfounded. Still, it didn't strike him as particularly strange. It made sense that the original members of the Adventurers' Group would want to preserve the mystery. Make the whole thing more interesting.

His anger over his friends' lack of seriousness quickly gave way to curiosity. He turned around to head back to the classroom but instead, he bumped into someone again.

This time, the victim of his clumsiness was a slender, incredibly beautiful young woman.

By sheer cruelty of fate, she actually fell.

"I-I'm so sorry. I... I..." Mica stammered, unable to find the words.

"Ouch." The girl smiled. "Don't worry. That was my fault."

Her voice sounded like an angelic choir to Mica.

"Could you help me up?"

"Y-Yeah! Of course!"

His face flushed crimson. Partly from the embarrassment of his own clumsiness. Partly because he couldn't stop staring at her long red hair and the dozens of freckles scattered with almost impossible symmetry across her pale skin.

When Mica took her hand, the warmth of her touch made him blush even harder.

Then she stood.

For an instant, their faces were so close they almost touched.

A fragrance that seemed almost heavenly reached him.

"O-Okay, um..." She pointed past him. "I'm headed that way."

"R-Right. Sorry. Sorry..."

She wasn't wearing a school uniform. Instead, she wore a loose white blouse and a skirt that reached halfway down her thighs. Elegant. Yet strikingly attractive.

"Are you going to let me through?" she asked with a soft giggle.

"Oh!"

Mica finally realized he was still blocking the hallway. He stepped aside so quickly that he banged his elbow against the wall.

"Thanks, Mica. Sorry I can't stay and chat, but I'm in a hurry."

"D-Do we know each other?" he asked, worried he'd forgotten someone.

The girl stopped once more and turned around with an apologetic smile.

"Mmm... Maybe I heard someone call your name a little while ago. I'm not sure. Just a coincidence. By the way, I'm Rose. See you later. I really have to go."

And just as suddenly as she had appeared— she was gone.

Mica remained standing there with a blank mind for nearly a full minute.

When he finally snapped out of it, he remembered what Cleric had told him.

He turned back toward his classroom. Though no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get Rose out of his head.