Kyah!
The sound of shearing wind tore through the air abruptly.
It was no ordinary caw. It was a harsh, metallic screech that resonated within Vanitas's chest cavity until it nearly cracked his ribs.
A massive black cloud suddenly eclipsed the sunlight of the newly cleared sky.
A violent downdraft struck the earth, whipping up a dense blizzard of snow. Amidst the swirling white, the entity descended.
A legendary crow. Broader than the carriages of the Great Families combined. Its plumage was as black as the void, swallowing light rather than reflecting it. A pair of eyes the color of coagulated blood stared down at them, and three steel talons drove into the rock and ice, crushing them like biscuits. [Yatagarasu].
Vanitas instinctively recoiled. The blood froze in his veins, and hallucinations of death began hammering at his skull once more.
A single glance at this creature pulled from the deepest of myths was enough to paralyze his limbs. Fear... yes, he was terrified, and there was no use lying to himself now.
Yet, at that exact moment, he felt a strange coldness coursing through his flesh. It wasn't the temperature of the environment, but an internal chill—a sensation he didn't comprehend, but one he desperately wanted to dissect and understand.
Mugen leaped gracefully, settling onto the bird's back.
He looked down at Vanitas, who was kneeling in the snow, and said coldly: "Climb up."
A step.
Two steps.
Vanitas reached the colossal crow. He extended a trembling hand and touched the coarse, black feathers.
A bizarre sensation.
His heart instantly ceased its frantic pounding. Absolute stillness... utter apathy. This was the very feeling he had been searching for. This entity was overflowing with the void; a single touch from it froze Vanitas's fear, dissolving it into nothingness.
He began his attempt to climb.
He grabbed a fistful of the thick wing feathers.
Then... a slip.
His frail body slid downward, crashing heavily onto the snowy ground.
Vanitas lifted his head, wiping the snow from his face, and said in a faint voice: "It's my first time climbing anything."
Another attempt.
A deeper grip. A surge upward.
Another fall.
He heard a faint, mocking laugh from above. He looked up to meet Mugen's condescending gaze.
"We do not have all morning to wait for you."
Vanitas ignored him. He focused the entirety of his attention on the black feathers.
Again.
A grip.
A fall.
Mugen looked at him, tilting his head. "What? Have you surrendered this quickly?"
Vanitas began attempting the climb yet again, burying his fingers brutally into the feathers.
He raised his strained, cracking voice, directing his words to the man sitting coldly above him:
"There is a legend in Styce... no, it isn't a legend. It is a forgotten truth."
A grip. His body trembled with every inch he gained.
"In the era of the Old Gods, 'Rei' was everything. It was the world, and your status was dictated by your talent in it."
A grip.
"And there was a man... named [Ethereum]. He didn't possess a single drop of that talent. He was utterly untalented."
He panted sharply, the wind lashing against his face.
"But his ambition... his ambition transcended existence itself."
Ethereum tried, and failed.
Then he tried again, and failed again.
And he tried again, and failed again.
"Failure crossed his mind millions of times!" Vanitas screamed as he hoisted his exhausted body upward.
A grip.
"Success crossed his mind millions of times... while failure happened thousands of times in reality."
A grip. His foot finally found a secure foothold.
"But do you know what people remember now?"
His only time succeeding.
A grip.
"And that single time... made people call him the greatest genius in history."
He reached the edge. His eyes met Mugen's back.
"And it is... what destroyed your old world."
A final grip. An ascent.
Vanitas finally settled onto the crow's back, right behind Mugen.
He stood on his trembling feet and stared at the silent back of the man ahead of him.
Silence.
Mugen did not reply. He did not move.
Vanitas sat down exhaustedly upon the coarse plumage.
A heavy silence enveloped the area.
At long last, Mugen's voice broke the stillness: "Yatagarasu... move."
The crow beat its magnificent wings and launched forward like a black projectile, piercing the crisp, blue sky.
Vanitas clung to the crow's body with every ounce of strength he could muster.
The biting chill of the wind slapped his face.
The scent of the wilderness... the scent of real, forgotten life, flooded his nose.
At that moment, Vanitas wished... to be the air.
Air that never tires, has no form, and holds no presence.
Vanitas wished...
That his existence did not exist.
And yet...
I wished to exist.