The Red Hand

Chapter 476 – The Only thing that Matters.

Halifax sprinted through the forest as she tried to put Labrys as far behind her as possible. The Divine Blade was tough, as would be expected of a being such as her, but even she had her limits. Throughout the clash with Labrys, Halifax's mind slowly bent and buckled as it tried hard to hold back the seemingly endless tide of emotions welling deep within. Having gone into this battle with a certainty that something was amiss, Halifax believed she could weather whatever storm surrounded her and the Demon Axe, but sadly, that was not the case.

Never in her worst nightmare could she have envisioned that she was actually Vike's firstborn, the Demon Blade Enūma. Halifax didn't really know what to expect out of her meeting with Labrys, and her best guess was that Elariel didn't want to admit some inconvenient truth, such as her having been made in part from Vikes' power. Such a thing would've been unpleasant for the Divine Blade to learn, but she could stomach that. After all, using a foe's power against them was a classic trope, and something that she'd done herself on many occasions. However, discovering that she was created, not from merely a fragment of the Demon Lord's power but was, in fact, his actual blade, was simply too much for Halifax to bear.

Her entire identity was built around being the Divine Blade that slew the Demon Lord and saved the world, and she took pride in that fact. Her status as a Hero was something she enjoyed, nay, she clung to it tightly as a central pillar of her entire existence. It was the one thing the Gods couldn't take from her, the one thing she thought was truly hers; and despite her complaints about her treatment throughout history it was a powerful light that shone through the darkness within her heart. At first, Halifax tried to deny the Demon Axe's words, telling herself that he was a liar and reasoning that Labrys was using psychological warfare in an attempt to weaken her during the battle. However, that notion did not hold much water once he uttered the name Enūma and told her the story of how Vikes began his rampage on Enoris.

Beyond the fact that he knew the name of a forbidden technique that few outside the Gods knew, something deep within Halifax told her that Labrys wasn't lying. It was as if she knew the truth deep within her heart, but she still refused to admit that the tale he told was real. No, it wasn't that she didn't want to admit it; she couldn't. For Halifax, her identity as the Divine Blade was the single most important thing to her, and without that, she feared that nothing else remained. Thus, she fought.

Halifax launched into battle with the Demon Axe in a reckless attempt to destroy him, hoping to quiet the voices in her mind by ending his existence. This worked for a brief moment, but just as even the mightiest of dams burst when too much pressure builds up behind them, Halifax's mind was unable to hold out any longer. The Divine Blade had spent millennia bottling up her emotions as she tried to hold herself together and prevent a relapse into the delirious and broken state she found herself in after the massacre of the Dark Elves. For the most part, this worked, and Halifax, with some notable exceptions, kept a cool head and maintained her sanity and level of mental stability over the ages. But the revelation that the most important pillar of her identity was built upon a lie was too much, and the pressure behind the proverbial dam finally grew to be too much until it threatened to burst. And this time, there was almost no chance it could be repaired if her ego fully shattered.

"I'm nothing..." Halifax said as her pace slowed to a crawl, her eyes partially glazing over as the world around her seemed to fade away. "I'm a tool... A tool created for a purpose." She said in a monotone voice that sounded unnatural and almost machine-like in its intonation and flatness. "None of it ever mattered... Nothing..." She said as tears continued down her cheeks. "I did my duty, and they disposed of me once I was no longer useful... Like the tool I am..." Halifax said as she fell to her knees in front of a large tree. "I'm Enūma... The Blade of Disaster..." She said as she held her blue blade in front of her, a visage that now seemed to disgust her. "I killed my own Father... I ran him through... Betrayed him... Did the Gods' bidding... And now... Now there's nothing left for me... No reason for me to exist..." She said as she held her blade by both ends, intending to snap it in half, an action that would erase her soul from existence. "I'm not a Hero... I'm nothing but a monster..." She said while putting pressure on her blade. "And monsters like me don't need to exist!" Halifax yelled as she held her blade into the air before bringing it down at high speed to snap it over her knee like a twig.

{I suppose it's fitting for things to end this way. I killed my own Father, and now his foolish Daughter will join him in oblivion, just as the Gods always wanted. Goodbye...} (Halifax)

"DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!" Akagi screamed at the top of her lungs as she seized Halifax's arm, a rare look of panic and honest to god terror on her face. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!?" The Demon said as she spun Halifax around and knocked her sword away before grabbing the Divine Blade's shoulders.

{YEP! RIGHT CALL WAS MADE IN FOLLOWING HER! HOLY SHIT THAT WAS CLOSE!} (Akagi)

"Akagi?" Halifax said as she stared the Demon Lord in the eyes, almost all life seeming to have vanished. "Why did you stop me?"

"BECAUSE YOU WERE TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF!" Akagi yelled in complete exasperation. "THERE'S NO WAY IN HELL I'M GOING TO JUST STAND BY AND WATCH THAT!"

{NEVER AGAIN! I WON'T JUST STAND BY AND ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN AGAIN!} (Akagi)

"There's nothing left for me, so please..." Halifax said as she looked to her blade, seeming to crave death. "Just let me die... Please... Just let me go..."

"Not before you tell me what the hell caused this!" Akagi growled, her voice distorting due to her frustration, shock, and anger. "What did Labrys do to you?!? What the hell happened during your fight to drive you this far?!?"

{I'm not paid enough to be a suicide hot line counselor! And why the fuck am I everyone's therapist?!? I'm the LEAST fucking qualified person in existence to handle these things, but they KEEP HAPPENING!} (Akagi)

"He told me the truth..." Halifax said, letting out a small laugh. "The truth about who I am..."

{Oh hell... I knew this was a possibility but... Dammit...} (Akagi)

"It all makes sense now. Why the Gods hated me.... Why I was always treated as nothing more than a nuisance..." Halifax continued, Akagi allowing her to speak her mind since that kept the Divine Blade's mind grounded. "I was never anything more than an expendable tool for them, one they wished never existed but had no choice but to make."She said as she slumped over a bit and looked to the side, forlorn. "I'm not the Divine Blade Halifax... I never was... My real name is Enūma... I was the blade stolen away from Demon Lord Vikes." She laughed again, this time weakly. "They stole me away from my Father and turned me into this... That's why they always hated me. I was the weapon of their greatest foe. That's all I ever was. From the very beginning, there was never anything good about me. I was just a tool. A tool they were happy to cast aside and abandon the moment my usefulness was-"

"YOU'RE NOT A TOOL!" Akagi screamed in her face. “NEVER CALL YOURSELF THAT!”

"Then what am I?!?" Halifax yelled back, regaining a bit of luster in her eyes. "I'm the blade that nearly brought about the end of the world! The Gods only used me as a last resort against Vikes when they were out of options! I was never intended to be anything else but a tool for someone else! If I'm not a tool, then what the hell am I?!?" She yelled as she tried to get up, but stumbled backwards and slammed her back into the tree as Akagi kept her grip on her shoulders.

{They were all right... I was an idiot to think that I was anything else...} (Halifax)

"What are you? What are you? You're my friend, Halifax." Akagi said through gritted teeth as she tried to keep her composure. "My friend. And I don't let anyone belittle my friends, not even themselves. So don't go devaluing your own existence!"

"A friend?" Halifax repeated the words back to her. "Do you really see me as a friend? Or has everything up till now just been my status as Vikes' weapon made you take a liking to me?"

"That's irrelevant!" Akagi growled, hating that the line of thinking she'd once held about the NPCs' affection for her was being thrown back at her. "You're my friend because I like you the person. It's because you're Halifax that I've come to appreciate you. That you were once Vikes' blade means nothing to me. I don't care one bit about your past!"

"How can you be sure?" Halifax asked, believing that there had to be some kind of connection. "How can you be sure that what you believe to be a feeling of friendship isn't some twisted affinity due to me being your Brother's weapon? I'm sure that's the reason why you feel an affinity for me, not because you actually like me."

"How can I be sure?" Akagi said as she looked to the ground to calm down before facing Halifax again. "I can never be sure of the origins of my feelings, Halifax."

"Then-" Halifax tried to speak but was interrupted.

"But it doesn't matter!" Akagi yelled, eyes burning with a mixture of anger and sadness. "I learned from my family that it doesn't matter why we feel these emotions, because the why doesn't make them any less real. That just because the emotions we feel may have been influenced by something outside of our control, or even if they were forced upon us, that doesn't make how one feels or the connections formed as a result any lessreal!"

{The Clan may have been influenced by the follower system within FWO and predisposed to liking me, but nothing I've ever seen from them makes me doubt their love for me. Yumi, Marshal, Kira, Mimi, Yuzu, Suzu, Sakura, Hikari, Nemino. All of the people that followed me from FWO harbor feelings toward me that are genuine and tangible; even if they started because of something arbitrary that doesn't change the fact that those feelings exist. I once questioned if that made those feelings legitimate, if that made them real, but I realized that doing so wasn't fair to them. If I have to choose between accepting their feelings and denying them, I'll accept them every time. I won't deny them that happiness, and I won't deny the happiness that receiving their love gives me!} (Akagi)

"We can't always control our own feelings. Hell, I don't even fully understand my own half the time." Akagi laughed as she cursed herself. "I can't even fucking tell the woman who's literally bonded to me that I love her to her face. But what I can say is that you're special to me, Halifax. You might be Vikes' creation, and that may have predisposed us to getting along, but who cares about all that bullshit?" She said, her words stunning Halifax. "What does it matter if the reason we became friends wasn't entirely up to us? Does that suddenly mean we can't be friends? Does that invalidate everything up until now? Do you not want to be my friend?"

"I...I...I..." Halifax stammered as she started to cry harder.

"Listen, you pig headed idiot." Akagi said as she pulled Halifax into a tight hug and cradled her head. "Demon Blade, Divine Blade, rusty old pipe in the shed. None of that matters. You're my friend, Halifax. You don't need to be anything or anyone else, because that's all I care about." She said, her words breaking the proverbial dam around Halifax's heart and causing Halifax to loudly sob in her arms as they hugged under the tree.