Karin went through the doors, writing everything she could on the blackboard of the closest clasroom.
Capucine saw what looked like a faint ghostly figure write, didn't even care to react. She did eventually, tell Gloria, who spread the word to Raven and Ashnael. Together they made enough noise banging on the doors, that Ruin checked and opened the way to hear them.
"You can't cross through, door opened or closed."
"We don't care about that", Ashnael replied. "You have to see this for yourself."
Ruin saw the board and immediately called Anaïs who barged in after a moment.
"I knew it. She was watching me."
"Don't sweat it too much, she knew you'd see her. Well, now we know."
"Respectfully, what bout us? We failed the test and didn't pass, sure, but when can we actually leave?"
"Never. You will remain here until we can use you until you either win or die. When the current soldiers' ten lives will have expired, you will be sent to the battlefield to die for my sake."
"What if we don't want to?"
"I don't care what you want. You will obey and you will die for this mission. Your lives, as pathetic as they are, will change the world for the better, Ashnael. Now all of you, stay here and wait in silence. If anything else happens outside, let me know."
"This is not happening. There has to be something I can do. I can reverse this to my advantage if I kill Helios myself, better yet, kill Anaïs and feed her to him. He can't be that much of a monster. When it's time to switch up teams, I'll kill everyone in here to strenghten my Sin, then I move forward in Perseus. As of now, nobody suspects a thing, and nobody can even see my face as long as I don't want to show it. I'll play along and eventually cross all lines. I just know whatever's out there is insane, and I want to see what it is with my own two eyes, I don't care about these people."
"Ashnael, do you understand?"
"Yes of course. We'll wait our turn."
Anaïs nodded and left to come back to the Structure, right hand on her forehead.
"This is the beginning of a migraine. Using Ashnael will be awful, I'll have to restrain him when he's inside the Structure somehow. Where...where is everybody?"
"They all went on a mission? They have a lot of lives to spare each, but it won't be the only asset. After all, they exchanged ideas on how they experienced fighting him. Let's just hope they find a way to kill him."
In one single streak, they all appeared in the circle one by one.
"Did he just throw a bomb out there, what is going on?"
"We're going to try, whatever it costs."
"Ismael, did you come up with a strategy?"
"None. He can't kill us all at the same time, and I've seen something, a single window frame in which he is not capable of counterattacking. I'm sure of it, he has limits."
"Go ahead, then. Just know all you guys' friends are right outside the school, and the impression I had was Karin, using the Ether to move around. Anyway, Agony is outside, she's a witch and she needs to die, your friends will take care of that."
"Thank you for telling us, Anaïs."
Some time passed, and the soldiers as she called them, kept coming back, and to an alarming rate. Which led her to finally express genuine concern.
" How many times have you all died?"
"Ana..."
"HOW MANY TIMES?"
"Theigon is still out there. With his last life. He can't let go of it."
"What about everyone else?"
"Alice has three. Amphelise five. Genova six. June one."
"How the hell did you let June die so many times?!"
"I can't really explain it. He started talking about what's beyond the forest and he went crazy."
"So no chance of winning whatsoever?"
"Nothing so far."
"Ismael I believed in you."
"Oh you gotta be kidding me. I tried, okay? Who gives a shit? You're the one sending us to the grinder anyway! I can't save the entire world! How about YOU tell us what the hel he really is?"
"He's human."
"No he's not. There's something else. We manahed to wound him pretty severely, and his blood is still glowing, not drying. And the closer I get to him, the more I stay around him, the more I understand he shares similarities with Nara. Helios is part Nephilim. You've been sending humans against a Nephilim all this time. Whatever he's done in the past, trust me, you're far worse."
"No, I'm not. I'm trying to stop him, I..."
"Then get out there. Once. We'll cover you. Theigon is about to drop dead for good and you'll have to replace him with Ashnael. And good luck trying to get anything through his thick freaking skull. At Cressenie we would try and negotiate if there was a way. But I guess everyone at Perseus is profoundly retarded."
Amphelise, sitting on the stairs, vouched for Ismael.
"We know damn well not to attack the Nephilims. The fact that Ambroise Ler and Geulsang Zhao are Nephilims, and, close friends with Ismael is a chance we won't get twice. Loovis once told us that the Nephilims are above everything we can find here, it wouldn't make sense for us to attack them, even in this specific context. Moreover, the more we fight, the less we even understand why we do so in the first place. We shouldn't have to suffer this much for so long for nothing."
"Amphelise, for the last time, please listen to me. We have to kill him because he's so dangerous."
"Then you will use us like this for every threat of Perseus? Are the people after him any less dangerous?"
"No, but..."
"June is up there, terrified. Are you going to send her out there again? For what? For her to get eviscerated one last time? What do you gain out of that exactly? Do you touch yourself when we're not here, thinking you're getting us to kill each other for your sake? What is this? Some type of sadistic rampage culture?"
"We're killing him..."
"This again. We're killing him so we can kill him. We kill him so he's dead. And when he's dead and we're two remaining, what then? What's the price? What's the reward? One threat gone. What about the hundreds of othes? What about Grid? What about Influenza? What about the Dead Zone?"
"They're not..."
"What they're not that bad? Are you serious? Helios was insane, sure. But only because he's made himself known for it. The ones I've mentionned managed to successfully retain privacy in their names when they committed their crimes. They're intelligent about it."
"Then do it! Call your fucking friends, Ler and Zhao."
"Anaïs. Nephilims don't kill each other. I'm sure you know that. What is going on?"
"You will win. Don't worry. You will. Because as soon as Agony dies, I'll use her body to give you both thousands and thousands of lives and you will keep on dying until you kill this man for me. You will never have a definitive death, count on that."