The Unmaker

[Dodge!]

Kari's voice blasted through her mind like a thunderclap, but Dahlia didn't move. Her legs stayed rooted. Her arms stayed low. Her breath held itself in her chest.

Somehow, she didn't feel like moving.

And then the Worm God pulled the trigger.

There was no dramatic recoil. No thunderous blast. It was a quiet click, clean and hollow, like someone flipping a page—but the moment the bullet left the barrel, her instincts screamed at her. She jerked her arms up, crossed her firefly bracers just in time, and the impact hit her like a falling tower.

A blinding flare of electricity burst from the contact point, lighting up the snowy garden in a halo of golden blue sparks. Her feet skidded backward, dragging long grooves into the frost as the sheer force of the shot shoved her across the snow.

She gritted her teeth. Every fiber of her arms screamed.

The bullet… isn't… stopping!

It didn't spark off or ricochet like a normal round. It spun forward like it had no intention of obeying the laws of the world, and it pressed harder and harder, chewing at the bracers like it wanted to burrow straight through her bones.

Cracks webbed across the surface of her gear. The electricity from the firefly bracers surged, but even that wasn't enough. Her legs were slipping. The frost beneath her was giving way in a fine spray of ice, and if she didn't do something soon, she'd soon be knocked all the way back to the wall.

She needed more strength.

Recollection: Stormlure!

With a strained hiss, she activated her firefly Art. Bioelectricity coursed through her arms, lacing her muscles with burning speed. Her veins lit up gold, glowing faintly beneath her skin, and the second the current surged, she twisted her torso and let the momentum carry her.

The bullet veered as she swiped it up, sending it arcing through the open ceiling where it vanished into the moonlit sky above.

Then she lost her balance and fell.

Her back hit the snow hard, and the impact knocked the wind out of her. Her lungs spasmed for a second, and she lay still, her arms sizzling from the energy overload.

Ow… my arms… still—

[Don't look away! Get up!]

Oh, and she tried to lift her head, but her vision swam. Sparks danced in her eyes. She blinked them away and tried to sit up, gasping—but that attempt didn't go anywhere.

The Worm God was no longer sitting cross-legged in the air.

Instead, he was standing right over her, rifle lowered, bayonet pressed gently—almost surgically—against the left side of her chest.

If she tried to sit up, she'd run the knife through her heart.

If she so much as twitched, he'd end her.

…

The boy stared down at her with the same lifeless gaze as before. The spinning blue spirals in his eyes didn't blink. The way his flower-patterned cloak hung over him, weightless and silent, made him feel more like a ghost than a god, and up close, she couldn't help but notice his skin looked half-machined. Ribbons of silvery plating wove along his arms, his neck, and his temples. Not grafted, but rather, his skin was simply half-flesh, half-metal.

Human and not.

Machine and not.

And cold wind passed through the garden, stirring the snow and flowers around them faintly before he finally spoke in a familiar, mechanical voice.

[... I wiped out the assassin bugs thirty-seven years ago,] he said. [So why is there one beneath me right now, and why does she already have one of my systems?]

Dahlia's breath caught. Her voice stumbled out before she could stop it.

"I… I don't know," she said quickly. "It was… almost a year ago. There was this… um, there was this bug trader who showed up in the undertown where I lived, and he was trying to give the system to me. I think… maybe he was a Hasharana? Or something like that?"

She fumbled for the words. Her hands shook.

"And then about the assassin bug thing, I… my mom," she added, voice rising. "She had an affliction. She ate bug meat all the time. She was already changing, and I guess… I guess I was born with it? With this blood. I don't know how it works. Or why. But I came here to take the exam because I know my system isn't… legitimate. Kari said she can't access a lot of features, so I thought if I passed the exam, if I got registered as a proper Hasharana, maybe I could… finally belong…"

But eventually, her voice trailed off.

The Worm God's face remained perfectly blank as she let spill everything out of pure, unadulterated fear. There was no flicker in his eyes. No breaths to be measured. No tension in his shoulders.

It didn't feel like she was talking to a human at all.

So it came almost as a surprise that—just as her stomach began to knot with the dread that maybe he hadn't heard a word she said—his voice returned.

[You stepped through the wall after cutting it open,] he said slowly. [But then you fixed the wall. Why?]

The question made her pause.

"…What?" she breathed.

[The wall. Why did you fix it after you destroyed it?]

She blinked up at him, confused. His tone hadn't changed, but the question hung in the air like a crack of lightning.

Why did I fix it?

She gulped, then cautiously tilted her head.

"Because… it was crying," she said, and her voice came out quieter than she expected. "When I cut it, it started crying. I didn't like that, so… I put the piece back." Then her eyes drifted to the edge of the garden, where the wall had once opened. "I didn't really fix the wall, though. It fixed itself. I just… gave it the piece back."

The Worm God stood silent for a long moment.

Then—with no change in expression—he lifted the bayonet rifle from her chest. He turned away without a word, the weapon hanging loose in his hand, and began walking slowly back to the centre of the garden. Snow shifted beneath his feet, but he left no trail.

[Dahlia Sina,] he said flatly. [You have passed. By tomorrow morning, your Altered Swarmsteel System will be registered. Once your Archive confirms it, you will be recognised as a proper Hasharana. Now leave me like the others already have.]

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Dahlia blinked, still frozen in place.

That was it?

She sat up slowly, breath steaming in the cold, the snow creaking beneath her. Everything was moving too fast. Too quiet. Her arms were still trembling from the fight—or the lack of one—and her thoughts were spinning faster than her heart.

She looked up at his retreating back. His cloak barely moved. His head didn't turn.

"Wait!" she called out, her voice wavering, quivering slightly. "You know what I am, don't you? You're the only one I know who has any sort of reaction to the words 'assassin bugs'! Please! Do you know anything about my mom? What are assassin bugs, really?"

He didn't stop.

"Why were they wiped out?" she asked. "Why me? Why do I—"

At last, his voice returned—low, detached, and utterly final.

[Serve humanity well,] he said. [Fight until you die.]

The ground beneath her gave a soft, sudden shudder, and she barely had time to look down before a wormhole bloomed open beneath her.

The light from the garden warped around her as gravity snatched her down.

She plunged through light, through darkness, through a sudden tug of cold air and heat and memory—

And landed flat on her bed with a muted whump.

Back in Tavern Emperatoria.

Her blankets bunched beneath her. The wormhole overhead sealed shut with a shimmer and vanished completely, and then it was like everything that'd happened in that snowy garden was all dream.

…

She sat there in silence, her heart still pounding.

The room was dark, and outside, the sandstone city stretched quietly beneath the night.

The wormhole sealed with a faint ripple of distortion. Snow settled. Silence returned.

With no more participants to entertain, the Worm God hovered a few metres above the snowy garden, cross-legged in the air, and balanced his rifle across his lap. He didn't breathe. He didn't need to.

He wasn't alone, of course.

The shadows in the garden finally grew bored of hiding the three figures who'd been hiding here all along, and he glanced at them while he relaxed in the air. Leaning against the left wall, the Fool had his nose buried in a soft-bound book with a cracked spine. The Sun leaned against the right wall, arms crossed, while the Hangman leaned against the wall behind him, munching absentmindedly on a long strand of dried squid.

He cracked his neck once.

"... The six participants we have this year are the most promising participants we've had in years," the Sun said idly, her voice calm but slightly edged as she narrowed her eyes at him. "In terms of raw strength, all six of them deserve to be Hasharana. They took down an Insect God. How are they not worthy?"

"Because they are only physically capable of being Hasharana," the Fool said casually without looking up from his book. "Don't undersell yourself, my dear Jiayin. You and Alice weakened those Spider Gods greatly before the six of them really started pulling their weight. Besides, you linked up with the surface Hasharana and coordinated the evacuation efforts perfectly, and you did it every single loop without questioning my decision. We really couldn't have done it without you."

Jiayin grimaced. "Even still—"

[I never received the official report of the battle from the Sun and the Hangman, in fact,] the Worm God said, cutting into their conversation. [How many times did you have to loop that battle, Fool?]

"A hundred and thirteen times," the Fool answered plainly. "The first twenty-one loops didn't go well. We couldn't evacuate all the civilians living above the heart chamber quickly enough, so they all died when the Spider Gods exploded out of the underground. Starting the twenty-second loop, I figured out the best way to evacuate everyone the most efficiently, and I relayed the methods to Jiayin so she could relay them to the surface Hasharana while we were chasing the Spider Gods in the heart chamber."

[And afterwards?]

"Eh. The twenty-second to thirty-one loops were pretty bad. The Spider Gods went on a rampage throughout the city and killed more people, so it took me a few more loops to figure out how to evacuate everyone else efficiently. Once I told Jiayin and she relayed the information to the others, I spent the thirty-second to forty-two loops figuring out how to contain the explosion underground. Eventually, I settled on—]

[Eating the explosion, yes, I heard. What next?]

"Well, the forty-third to forty-fourth loops were Jiayin and Alice getting killed by the Spider Gods before our participants could jump into the fight. I had the surface Hasharana guide the participants before making them peel off, so by the forty-fifth loop, the six of them were fighting alongside Jiayin and Apocia already." Then he wagged a finger, smiling at the Sun and the Hangman. "You guys managed to push the Spider Gods to the brink that same loop, but I looped ten more times, and each time, Jiayin gets shot by Thracia and Alice gets knocked away by Apocia, putting the two of you out of the fight temporarily. I figured I didn't need to reset since neither of you were dead, so from loop fifty-five to loop one hundred and thirteen, I let the participants fight Apocia six on one without outside interference."

Alice laughed heartily at that. "I cahn't bulieve yu let them diea so mahny teimes."

The Fool shrugged. "That's why I said they were only physically capable. They could kill Apocia by themselves, but it took them fifty-eight loops with me manipulating events slightly each time to create a new outcome, in which they survive long enough for the two of you to get back up and stop Thracia from shooting them halfway across the district. After the two of you managed to stop Thracia in loop a hundred and thirteen, the battle was as good as won. They killed Apocia that same loop, so I ended the loops right after I confirmed no civilians were killed."

[So how many hours in total did you loop?] the Worm God asked. [I was not told to interfere, so it must not have been very long.]

"Oh, not that long. The early and middle loops lasted an average of ten minutes each, so in total, a hundred and thirteen loops took about... twenty-five hours," the Fool said, tapping his chin as he did. "It wasn't difficult explaining to the civilians afterwards why the rest of the world seems to be one day ahead of the date they remembered. I just told the Hasharana to spread information that the Spider Gods had released clouds of cognitive-numbing pheromones during the battle, so it was perfectly normal that everyone in the city misremembered the date. If the loops had gone on any longer, it'd be a pain even for you to figure out how to explain the time delay, huh?"

[It would have been. And if the six participants had killed Apocia quicker, there would be even less of a time delay.]

"I agree. However, I agree with Jiayin more. Even though it did take them fifty-eight tries to kill Apocia—and Alice only three tries when she passed the exam three years ago—Apocia was still a battle-hardened Insect God, so I'm sure they would've slaughtered any weaker bug on their first try. I think all six of them deserve to be Hasharana, at the very least." The Fool adjusted his glasses, just enough to glance over the rim at the Worm God. "So, then. Why pass only the assassin bug?"

The question floated there for a moment, and the Worm God slowly turned his head towards the Fool.

[They all broke my wall,] he said evenly. [Only she put it back.]

The Fool smiled.

"I wouldn't have put it back either," he said.

"Me neither," the Sun said.

"Mhghm," the Hangman mumbled mid-bite. "Yuu todally kould've passed all of dem—"

[Sun, return to the Hellfire Caldera Front at once. The preparations for the new year's Starfire Siege must begin immediately,] the Worm God said. [Hangman, expect a new major assignment within two weeks. The briefing will arrive through your Archive, and you are to complete it with the new recruit. As for the Fool… keep looking for her. The moment you do, put her in a loop.]

The Hangman gave a half-hearted salute with her dried squid. The Fool merely bowed his head and kept flipping pages. The Sun opened her mouth like she still had lots to say, but the Worm God raised a hand and started opening three wormholes beneath their feet.

[None of us have time to waste,] he said. [The two Spider Gods entered the city unnoticed, and they were nigh-undetectable until they chose to reveal themselves. The Swarm is evolving faster than we can adapt to them, and we are losing informational control. We must be vigilant.]

Then he looked up idly, trying to remember what Zora had told him to say to the proctors at the end of the exam.

[... Thank you for overseeing this year's Hasharana Entrance Exam,] he finally said. [This new batch is… competent.]

With that, all three Arcana Hasharana fell through their wormholes without fanfare, and the stillness returned as he closed the wormholes.

Silence returned to the garden. Only snow moved now—soft drifts falling from the open ceiling, landing weightless on petals and stone—so he exhaled through his nose, and his eyes began to close.

Right before he was about to fall asleep, though, the sound of crunching snow woke him up.

A fourth figure stepped out of the shadows and walked calmly forward, his sandals left clean prints behind him. In one hand, he carried a sagging satchel full of fruit. In the other, two chipped ceramic cups clinked together in his fingers with every step.

He stopped right beneath the Worm God and looked up with a smile.

"Hey, Enki," Safi said, voice warm and too knowing as he gave his satchel a gentle pat. "I brought some snowmelons. Just picked them up from a nearby night market. They're extra fresh and cool this time of year, so I'm making some juice."

[I don't want juice.]

"Juice is nice."

[Juice is for children.]

"You are a child."

Enki clicked his tongue. Safi ignored it. He sat down cross-legged in the snow, pulled a snowmelon from the satchel—round and pale, glistening with cold—and then he set the cups beside him with exaggerated care.

"I'm making juice," Safi said again, waving him down. "Come down and sit."