"Don't move!" Voices rang out as the knights advanced, the tallic clash of their dark armor cutting through the silence.
Raiden stayed motionless and silent. Their words fell on deaf ears—not that he had any desire to move regardless. His golden eyes drifted around, lost in a confused daze.
"You are under arrest, Raven." The knights took their positions, maintaining a cautious distance from him.
At the ntion of the na Raven, Raiden's eyes narrowed instinctively. Once more in his travels, a sharp, painful sensation seized his chest, compelling him to stagger backward.
He carried many titles—the bookkeeper, the moon dragon, lieutenant of the chaos armada.
But who was he truly beneath them all? Was he Raven, the false identity that had earned him his lieutenant's position?
Raiden, the last of the Night family and faithful guardian of the books? Jack, the assassin who had murdered his own brother?
Or so other Raiden entirely, wielder of the moon dragon's power and commander of magical beings?
The confusion was painfully clear in his eyes. What was he, exactly? How could he ever be happy without even knowing who he truly was?
His prolonged silence clearly unsettled the knights. Raiden's heart hamred against his ribs as he shook on the ground, mouth hanging slightly open behind his skeletal mask.
The knights charged without hesitation, and this ti Raiden sensed sothing oddly familiar and irritating about their presence.
Yet sothing inside restrained him. Despite his obvious confusion, he moved like a dancer through their ranks, leaving all of them unconscious on the ground within monts.
The instant it happened, fear rippled through the area and the few remaining citizens fled into their hos. Raiden, however, crouched down and pressed his hand against his chest.
This was only the second ti he'd endured such prolonged suffering since drowning in despair after killing his brother, Deathsight.
The uneasiness kept spreading through his chest as he rubbed at it, frowning. But while painful, it didn't feel like sothing to agonize over—more like his body was trying to communicate sothing to him.
Could the na Raven truly hold such power over him? Perhaps it would be the key that led him down the right path, toward purpose and happiness.
After a brief mont trapped in this puzzling episode, the strange sensation finally stopped, leaving him even more bewildered. He rose to his feet with the jerky movents of a marionette, heading toward the building.
Heavy silence stretched across the distance, broken only by the faint clacking of armor from approaching knights. Even so, no imdiate danger seed apparent.
Without hesitation, he moved toward the buildings, and as soon as he crossed onto the purple ground, he found himself on rocky pavent threading through narrow alleys toward the straight street ahead.
The buildings stood in perfect alignnt, each identical to the next with matching balconies and stairwells, and there were so few that they could all be counted at once, making it nearly impossible to tell whether this was a city, town, or simple village.
This hollow shell of a person showed no concern for the nature of the place he'd entered. Still, his head moved restlessly from side to side, taking in his surroundings with unmistakable curiosity, until he suddenly stopped and turned left toward a narrow alley.
Tucked away in the alley was a child who displayed no aura or magical markings, his clothes as torn and threadbare as Raiden's own damaged garnts.
No more than nine, with eyes of startling blue intensity, his hair was so thick with gri that whether it was brown beneath or simply dirt itself remained a mystery.
Raiden's eyes remained fixed and squinting, as if trying to pierce through fog. Even in his current emptiness, sothing about those blue eyes tugged at buried mories. Sowhere, sohow, he had encountered this child before.
As they locked eyes with each other, the child's expression shifted with dawning recognition, and he began to cautiously erge from his concealnt.
"Is that you, hero?" The kid asked with uncertainty, his steps calculated as he closed in on Raiden.
For a few heartbeats, Raiden continued studying the boy's face, then abruptly turned his back and moved to continue his journey.
"It's Nico…" the kid said and ran before Raiden, his eyes widening with pride and excitent.
The moon dragon stopped and slowly absorbed the boy's words. Yes, he did know him. They had t in Dark City during Raiden's first visit to his kingdom, when he'd traded a sack of water for crucial information. Nico. That was who this was.
But tragically for Nico, Raiden's fractured mind couldn't grasp anything anymore, not even his own identity. He remained lost, shattered, and drowning in the guilt of his brother's death.
After a pause, Raiden moved to walk past Nico and resu his aimless journey, but the boy's eyes lit up with recognition, his smile growing wider as he quickly reached out to grasp Raiden's left hand.
"You must be holess, just like … so you understand." he said and began dragging Raiden alongside him.
A bewildered expression crossed Raiden's features beneath his mask, his confusion evident as Nico tugged him forward.
"I have to take you sowhere, Hero… before anyone else finds out." Nico added the mont they exited the purple buildings and ran on the purple desert.
"Hero"—Nico still used that word, still looked at him with those bright, trusting eyes. Even knowing Raiden's help had never been altruistic, the child's faith remained unshaken.
He'd stood there waving as Raiden departed the kingdom, hope intact. But now, mid-step, sothing stirred—a faint heartbeat that hit like thunder in his chest, stopping him cold and jerking Nico to a halt. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ Nove1Fire
The heartbeat pierced through his inner void like a distant bell. For one miraculous instant, genuine feeling broke through—serenity, warmth, hope that this suffocating mask might finally fall away.
But the light died almost before he could recognize it, leaving him in darkness once more.
"Don't worry, the shelter isn't far. Hold on a bit longer." Nico said and began dragging Raiden once more, and this ti, he gave in willingly.
Soon they were nearing the familiar brown desert again, the strange purple clay landscape now behind them.
But when Raiden arrived at the border between the two desert territories, Nico stopped and turned toward him. His face darkened slightly as he squinted.
"Can you do sothing about the things on you?" Nico asked casually, his eyes glancing at Raiden's body.
"The mask… the sword…" his expression grew even darker. "…and the clouds above your head."
Raiden's eyes instinctively went to his shadowy sword, and without a single thought, it vanished. He then touched the dark smoky skeletal mask, which also dissolved into nothing.
He stopped, blinking in confusion as it dawned on him that he couldn't dismiss his moon dragon transformation the way he had his sword and mask.
His face shook and his neck twisted as he fought against it—he wouldn't just let this stand. Sothing inside him wouldn't allow it.
This continued for so ti, Nico watching in bewildernt as Raiden's body convulsed rapidly like a madman, his mouth hanging slightly open.
But suddenly, a thought forced its way into Raiden's consciousness, and his dark aura began to shift to blue, his white hair darkening to black while the marks on his face and hands slowly faded, leaving only the chain tattoos across his torso.
His eyes went wide as he attempted to smile, but his expression seed to obey different orders entirely. He could think sowhat now, though his thoughts arrived in broken pieces, beyond his full control, as though he were incomplete.
"Now, let's go." Nico smiled and began dragging Raiden once more.
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