Chapter 668: Rest Now, You Did Your Best

Euclid seemed to see that knowledge in her eyes, and he inclined his head slightly, as though acknowledging a fair bargain fairly struck.

"Fear not for her future, however. She will carve her own path in time and find a new family when the moment is right." He raised his voice slightly, not in anger but in the way a man calls across a distance. "Forbrennir!"

The blue-haired woman heard her name called across the distance.

She turned at once and walked quickly back into the temple.

Fresh blood covered her from the neatly tied hair at the back of her head all the way down the length of her elaborate crimson robe to the fancy shoes on her feet.

"Understood, Master Euclid," she muttered, the words low and already resigned.

She turned her blood-covered face toward the small child still standing near the dying woman.

The blood on her cheeks had begun to dry, cracking slightly at the corners of her mouth. "Come, little one. You shall now call us family, for the time being."

Zanya hesitated. The seconds stretched out in the silent chamber while her mother’s dull, fading eyes never once left her face.

The little girl’s small body remained locked in place, caught between her parent and the two strange figures waiting.

Her feet refused to move at first, then slowly, she forced herself forward.

She stepped away from her mother’s legs, and the absence of that warmth against her side was the first true loneliness she had ever known.

Zanya crossed the short distance of blood-streaked stone, her small footwear making soft sounds against the wet floor, and went to stand between the bloodied woman and the tall old man.

Just as Forbrennir began to gather the power that would take them from the temple, Baozhe’s thoughts stirred one final time.

It was faint and barely there, the mental equivalent of a hand raised weakly from a sickbed.

[Uhm... Master Euclid, if you would—]

"Do not even think about it, Baozhe." Forbrennir turned her head sharply and fixed the dying woman with a dangerous glance.

Her deep blue eyes were cold and hard: she had run out of patience several minutes ago and was now simply waiting for the conversation to end.

"When Master Euclid lends out even a little help, you mortals always get ahead of yourselves and begin demanding more than what was offered. Any further stupid requests from you and I will make certain your daughter lives a difficult life from this day forward."

The threat hung in the air, plain and unadorned.

Euclid let out a long, tired sigh. He had seen this type of scene play out a thousand times and had long since grown weary of it.

He lifted one hand in a slow, calming motion toward the woman.

"Calm yourself, Forbrennir. You are more or less a mortal as well." The words were gentle, but they carried a weight that suggested this was not the first time he had reminded her of that fact.

He turned his vibrant red eyes toward the downcast woman whose body was already failing beyond repair. "Baozhe, you used a forbidden technique to animate your body after death, then used that false life to summon me here. There is nothing more I can do for you now."

[B... But my husband is—]

"Hachiman as well," Euclid interrupted, his voice remaining even and without heat.

He spoke the name the way a man speaks of a colleague he respected but could not save. "He was particularly wanted dead by many of the death gods... Nevertheless, because of your long service to me over the years, I will put in a good word to the goddess on your behalf. You will spend your afterlife in paradise together with your husband. Rest assured of that much. However, please accept that you and Hachiman are already dead. You did your best, now rest... Farewell, Baozhe."

The golden light of the circuit flared once, bright and brief, a flash that filled the chamber and then was gone. When the light faded, Euclid, Forbrennir, and the small girl had vanished from the chamber. The space where they had stood was empty. The only thing that remained was the broken body of the mother, alone on the stone floor, surrounded by the drying symbols of her own blood.

And the trio disappeared.

A single tear slipped from Baozhe’s dull eye and traced a clean path down through the blood on her cheek.

Then her body collapsed fully, the embers of the false life quickly leaving her.

Benjamin remained inside the memory long enough to watch the centuries of life that had shaped Zanya into the person she had become.

The pages turned faster now, years folding into years, and he watched her grow.

She hid it well behind sharp words, easy confidence, and bright smiles, but the need beneath the surface was clear. It showed in the way she always surrounded herself with people, the way she always needed something to do, somewhere to go, someone to touch.

Zanya wanted stimulation and warmth.

Those were things the detached Euclid had never been able to provide, and the "friends and family" he had spoken of had proven no better in the years that followed.

They had given her training and purpose, but never what a small child would always want.

She lived a very hedonistic life afterward, chasing sensation and pleasure without restraint. The years blurred together in a long chain of feasts, sex, fights, faces whose names Benjamin did not bother to remember.

But real talent lived underneath the excess; she was often praised for her rare ability to take ordinary humans and train them until they reached the level of arch humans.

That gift alone made her a particularly valued and gifted member of the New Testament.

But Benjamin noticed that the praise never seemed to reach her. It landed on her and slid off, the way rain slides off stone.

He also learned that Euclid stood as the leader of the Old Testament.

The Old Testament controlled the New Testament in turn, because the leader of the New Testament was even a member of the older order.

People like Euclid and Forbrennir, the "Merlins" of Elyndor, were the ones found in the Old Testament. The New Testament comprised of young and more modern folks. They were practically another limb of the Old Testament.

[Ah. Then it is the Old Testament who want me exterminated?] The question formed in Benjamin’s mind with the quiet certainty.

{Specifically, Master, it appears Forbrennir wants you exterminated.} Sys’s voice was calm, but there was something underneath it now, a slight shift in tone that suggested she was paying close attention to the implications of her own words. {She gave the order with the full power of the Old Testament behind her, yet she arranged it carefully in a way that places the responsibility solely on her own shoulders.}

Benjamin turned that information over in his mind, examining it from every angle.

[I think she is probing me. She wants to see how well I perform against her children. When I am finished fishing for the information I still need, I guess I will show her exactly what I can do...]

The thought was not particularly threatening. It was just a statement of intent, the way a man might say he intends to pay back a debt.

Some remaining fragments of Zanya’s long life were still unfolding when Benjamin felt himself forcefully wrenched out of the memory space.

The sensation was sudden and violent, the way a hand yanks a book away from a reader mid-sentence.

***

When he came back to himself, the first thing he registered was the state of his own body.

It was beaten and broken. Pain arrived before thought did, a dull, heavy ache that radiated from every joint and every muscle.

Heavy stones and lengths of cold metal bound his limbs tightly against the ground, pinning him in place so that he could barely shift. The metal cruelly bit into his wrists and ankles.

The stones pressed against his chest, and he could feel the rough grain of the ground beneath him, cold and unyielding.

He lifted his head, the muscles in his neck screaming in protest, and looked around for the Apex Girls.

And he found them at a great distance—many streets away. They were standing together, and they were not moving toward him. They were not moving at all.

"What are they...?" he wondered aloud, the words rough and quiet in his throat.

Before he could finish the thought, a massive, bright ball of concentrated heat appeared in the air high above him.

It shone with the intensity of a sun and was large enough to swallow three full buildings at once.

The light from it washed over the street, over the stones that bound him, turning the shadows sharp and the air itself hot and dry.

Benjamin recognized the work at once. It was Saharit’s doing.

And the ball of heat began to fall.