Swan Song [Dark Fantasy | Progression Fantasy | Slowburn]

Chapter 40 - The Chessmaster


[Volume 1 | Chapter 40: The Chessmaster]

A beautiful kick to the punctured stomach sent Nemesis sprawling across the ground, the pavement cracking beneath his body. He skidded to a halt several meters away as skin glistened metallically in the moonlight.

Pandora knelt beside the nigh-comatose Leila along the bunker-building walls, brushing a lock of hair from the girl's face with a gentleness that belied her earlier ferocity.

"...Big Sis...Dora?" Leila managed, her voice barely a whisper.

"Hold still." Pandora's voice carried no usual edge as she cradled Leila's head. "[Sanatio.]"

A soft green luminescence bloomed beneath her palm, seeping into the wound where Leila's skull had struck metal. The girl's breathing steadied as the Enhancement spell knitted tissue and staunched blood flow, though her emerald eyes remained unfocused.

"I learned this from Bianca," Pandora murmured, an old ache coloring her words. "She always said healing was about intent as much as technique... that you had to mean it wholeheartedly." Her free hand trembled slightly. "I never quite managed her skill level, but for you..."

The glow intensified, and some of the color returned to Leila's cheeks. Behind them, Nemesis's laughter cut through the night like broken glass as he rose once more.

"Still playing the protective sister, Dora? How many more children are you going to fail to save?"

Pandora's shoulders tensed, but she didn't turn. Her focus remained on Leila as [Sanatio's] green light pulsed in time with the girl's heartbeat. She spoke only when the bleeding stopped completely.

"The only one who's failed here is you, Sieg." She stood, positioning herself between the assassin and her charges. "Six years of returning to your old, miserable, and utterly myopic ways... and this is the best you have to offer? Beating children half to death?"

"Children?" Steam erupted from Nemesis in violent patterns. "That 'child' nearly crashed my Ars Magna. And this one..." He gestured at Leila with something approaching respect. "Well, I can see why the Altairs were so proud of their bloodline. But you're deflecting, Dora. You know this isn't about them—it's about you."

Pandora stood up, her golden eyes reflecting the same cold light that had once driven armies to ruin.

A flutter of movement caught moonlight as Malleus materialized from the shadows, her apricot eyes dimmed by fresh wounds. Blood ran freely down her form, a testament to whatever force had driven her back to this killing ground. She barely managed to escape just the moment before the Iron General's [Ruptura] struck her.

Apollo wasn't far behind, appearing on Pandora's opposite flank with his body still trembling from [Constricta's] aftereffects.

"You took your time," Nemesis noted, studying Malleus's injuries with narrowed eyes. His usual smirk faltered for a fraction of a second—something in the pattern of those wounds setting off warnings in his enhanced biology. Apollo's state drew a derisive snort. "And you...letting those brats get the better of you?"

"Boss, I—" Apollo started, but Nemesis silenced him with a wave.

"Later." He dismissed his subordinate as he refocused on Pandora. "You remember our earlier conversation, Dora? About what happens if you refuse to meet on my terms?"

"Threats to reveal my identity, turning the entire underworld against me, destroying everything I've built. Did I miss anything else?" Pandora nonchalantly shrugged.

"Just the most important part." Nemesis's smile widened impossibly. "The part where I offer you a way out, a chance to be what you were always meant to be."

Malleus and Apollo shifted positions, forming a deadly triangle with their leader. Steam, strings, and blood-red flame created a web of tripolar death around the High Inquisitor.

"Join us, Dora." Nemesis extended his hand, an echo of a gesture made years ago. "The Bloodhounds need someone like you. Someone who understands that true power means breaking free of the Empire's chains. Together, we could—"

Laughter.

It started softly—a sound so unexpected that even Nemesis himself faltered. Then it grew, building like a wave until it filled the night with something caught between genuine mirth and absolute derision. Pandora's shoulders shook as she laughed, the sound carrying none of her usual winter chill.

"Hahahahaha!" She clutched her stomach, tears in her eyes. "Oh my goodness! T-this is too good!" Her laughter was contagious, the shock spreading to Malleus and Apollo in a ripple of disbelief. Even Acacia, who was barely conscious, couldn't believe such an ontological impossibility.

Pandora Kircheisen was laughing?

"Join us, Doraaaa~" she mimicked in a sing-song voice. "'Be what you were always meant to be: a dirty criminal who kills and tortures because living under an oppressive Empire is so terrible.'"

She met Nemesis's blood-red gaze with her own.

"Instead of working on making society better, your dumbass decided to become a criminal again, but only now, you ended up manipulating a whole peanut gallery of criminals for the past six years. Because that's what true power is, right? Manipulating others to do your bidding? How novel, how mesmerizing, how absolutely inspiring!" She wiped away tears. "And all because you just couldn't move on from Bianca..."

With her amusement came something else—a shift in the air that sent goosebumps crawling up Nemesis's spine. For the first time in years, he felt an emotion he thought he'd excised from his being: uncertainty. The world seemed to recede, leaving only Pandora and her damnable golden eyes.

"Y-You don't know anything."

The "great" Nemesis, Head of the Bloodhounds, was stuttering.

"Ah, what a convenient excuse that is." Pandora's smile was all knives. "But, there is one thing...just one liiiittle thing about your plan that you forgot to consider, Sieg. Do you know what it is?"

Nemesis's mouth opened, then closed. No answer came.

"I'll tell you," Pandora continued, stepping forward. "Everything you have done up until now has been a game of chess. You have been moving your pieces, calculating every move, trying to checkmate me with your 'perfect' strategy. But, my old friend, you forgot one thing: the chessboard belongs to me, and I am the one who dictates its rules."

The air itself seemed to freeze at her declaration—a palpable sense of domination that made Malleus and Apollo draw back instinctively.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice the Bloodhounds lurking off Fiora's coast...that I wouldn't investigate how Ocarina was a feeder to the Luminance drug Trade due to its ports and borders with foreign areas and criminal activities? How every criminal with a brain wants a piece of that?"

Understanding dawned in Nemesis's blood-red eyes, his mind finally registering the depth of his miscalculation.

"You knew. From the very beginning, you—"

"I originally was going to lie low and not bother myself with a reprobate like you, but once I realized that the legal process wasn't the way to save the boy's life, I knew exactly how this would play out. A corrupt port city, desperate nobles, and an Irregular sentenced to death... it was the perfect stage. All I had to do was give your informants exactly what they wanted to see."

"No..." Nemesis's voice carried yet another tremor of doubt. "The mercury during the execution—"

"Was deliberate, of course. I made sure your rats got a good look at it when Acacia escaped. After all, what else would make the great Siegfried Eisenberg abandon his current operations? What else would make him lower his asking price when Cagliostro came begging for assassins around the underworld?" She tilted her head, studying him like a particularly fascinating specimen. "The mighty Nemesis, so desperate to confront his old war companion that he'd take a contract far below his usual standards."

Malleus's expression darkened as the implications sank in. Apollo simply stared, mouth agape.

"You always did let your obsessions cloud your judgment, Sieg. Six years you spent building your little criminal empire, and the moment you caught a whisper of mercury, you came running back like a moth to flame."

"You're lying." But uncertainty had crept into his voice, those perfect calculations beginning to splinter. "The telecommunications hub, the hostages—"

"Were exactly what I expected from someone who thinks purely in the moment." Pandora's words cut through his protests like razors through silk. "You needed a stage for your grand revelation, somewhere to demonstrate your power over Windsor's infrastructure. The moment you mentioned 'telecommunications' during our last meeting, I knew exactly how you'd make your move."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She gestured at the warehouse complex, her smile all razors. "But tell me, Sieg, did you ever wonder why a backup telecommunications hub would have such rudimentary security? Why were the guards so easy to overwhelm? Why did everything fall into place so perfectly for your plan?"

Apollo's eyes widened, now understanding why this area was so "perfect" as their temporary base.

"Boss, the [Bounded Fields]—"

"They were slightly altered just before I left for Ocarina, and maintenance was scheduled in such a way that there would be fewer guards during this timeframe." Pandora smiled. "Of course, I did this for quite a few areas in the outskirts, and I was as discreet as I could be to make sure no one reinforced them, but there's power in limiting the amount of options your opponents could take. This was merely one of the scenarios. Every security measure, every patrol route, every emergency protocol... all carefully adjusted to create the perfect killing ground. Not for you to trap me... but for me to trap you."

"Wait....you're b-bluffing..." Nemesis strained a smile, steam coiling tighter around his form. "Back at the clocktower, when I confronted you—"

"Oh, that performance?" Pandora's laugh was musical, almost cruel in its lightness. "The way I acted so shocked due to your 'unforseeable' revelations? The way I seemed so devastated when you threatened to expose my identity?" She wiped a non-existent tear from her eye. "I must say, watching you gloat about having me in the palm of your hand was rather cute."

"You were cornered! I saw it in your eyes, the way you—"

"Jeez, you're a broken record," Pandora interrupted, rolling her eyes as she stuck a finger in her ear. "Did you really believe that I was so emotionally crippled that I couldn't even bluff my way out of a conversation? How insulting."

Nemesis's gaze turned inward, replaying their encounter in the clock tower, seeing it now in a different light. The shock in her eyes, the trembling in her hands…they were all calculated to manipulate him. To make him think he had the upper hand.

The revelation hung in the air like a guillotine blade.

"You see, when you asked me to run away with you to Desperado after the war, you never understood why I refused. You thought it was loyalty to the Empire, or fear of leaving everything behind. But the truth is much simpler: I saw what you would become... a man so broken by loss that he'd turn to the very corruption he once turned away from."

She took another step forward, and this time even Nemesis drew back, his prana flow in shambles as he confronted the magnitude of his misread.

"So I waited. I matured. I rose through the ranks of the Divine Court, and I made this city my own. Now, here we are, with you thinking you've finally cornered me, when in reality..."

Something, akin to fear, exploded from within Nemesis.

"You've walked right into my endgame."

Before anyone could react, Apollo snapped.

"You dare mock our boss?!" Rage consumed his drawl as Dread String erupted from his bad arm's fingertips, blue threads seeking to bind and strangle her. His good arm drew a knife as he charged, blade aimed for Pandora's throat. All the humiliation, all the doubt she'd sown—he'd end it with one clean slice.

But Pandora didn't move.

She merely stood there, golden eyes reflecting something ancient and terrible, as her prana surged.

The storm came without warning.

Raw prana exploded outward in a wave that shredded Apollo's strings like paper in a hurricane. Before he could process the failure of his technique, Pandora sidestepped his wild slash gracefully. Her fist blazed cobalt blue as [Sturm] manifested.

The impact shattered bone.

Apollo's eyes went wide as her punch drove into his solar plexus with devastating precision. Blood erupted from his mouth as internal organs compressed under the force, but that was only the prelude to her assault. Her other hand shot out, catching his throat and driving him to the ground.

"How predictable." Her voice carried echoes of the woman who had once painted Northern and Eastern Theaters red, Mercutio—the name that had made armies tremble. "Look at you, so eager to die for a broken child playing at king." Her grip tightened around the puppeteer's neck. "Tell me, does it hurt? Knowing that everything you believed in was built on delusion?"

He tried to speak, but could only manage a wet gurgle. Pandora's golden eyes studied him with clinical detachment.

"Your loyalty is admirable, if misplaced, but that's what happens when you let sentiment cloud your judgment. Isn't that right, Sieg?"

Malleus's apricot eyes blazed with an emotion rarely seen in the scarlet witch—genuine concern. Her blood pulsed as she gathered what remained of her strength, stolen prana mingling with Bloodflame in an anguished gambit.

"[Gran Fiamma!]"

It was an inferno that dwarfed anything she had unleashed against Elias. Blood-red flames twisted into a column that seemingly reached toward the heavens itself, turning night to crimson day. The sheer heat warped the area, creating mirages in the superheated air as thirty souls' worth of stolen prana ignited at once.

Acacia felt his heart stop at the sight. The flames—so much like that night in Litore—towered above them like a demon's maw. His body trembled with primal terror as memories threatened to overwhelm him. The screams, the heat, the helplessness…

But Pandora didn't even turn to face the oncoming hell.

"[Festung.]"

A subtle golden sheen spread across her form, barely visible in the hellfire's light. When Malleus's inferno struck her, it simply...ceased to be. The flames dispersed around Pandora, her enhanced durability nullifying even hellfire as if it were a child's sparkler. She didn't flinch nor did she move a muscle; she just stood a statue of unfathomable power as Malleus's ultimate technique spent itself against her inviolate self. Only then did she deign to turn, regarding Malleus with the same disinterest one might show an insect. Her finger rose in an almost lazy gesture, pointed like a child playing at guns.

The water bullet, [Aqualamina], moved faster than thought—a compressed line of liquid wreckage that crossed the distance between them before Malleus could even register the Strategic Class spell. It pierced through her skin as if it was paper, missing vital organs by millimeters but carrying enough force to send waves of shock through her system.

The scarlet witch's eyes rolled back as she collapsed, unconscious before she hit the ground.

"Do you know the important part about a group of people fighting one person? If that one person is vastly stronger than all of you, then all of your plans turn to dust."

Pandora, standing tall amidst the carnage of her own making, allowed herself a small smile as she kicked the catatonic Apollo quite a few meters to the side.

"You always did make it look effortless," Nemesis managed through gritted teeth. "Aquamarine…one of the strongest Spontaneous Birthrights ever recorded. Even Bianca was impressed by your talent."

"Reminiscing about the good old days? Back when the three of us were inseparable... and when your abilities still served a purpose beyond this pathetic grasp at rebellion?"

Nemesis took another step back.

"You've grown stronger."

"And you've grown stagnant." She gestured at his fallen comrades. "Look at them. Look at what your cowardice has wrought. Apollo, who'd follow you into hell itself. Malleus, who burns herself alive with stolen souls. Is this really the 'freedom' you envisioned when you turned your back on the Empire?"

"They chose their path—"

"Did they?" Pandora's cut in like winter wind. "Or did they just believe in the fantasy you sold them? A criminal syndicate that would 'break free' of the chains of oppressive Empires?"

He flinched as if struck, memories rising unbidden of days spent under infernal tundras, of nights huddled around makeshift fires, of the camaraderie forged in blood and shared purpose. Of the girl they had both loved, whose death had torn something irreplaceable from his heart.

And those memories.

It burned him more than anything—his failures. His failures were what caused everything to fall apart.

"You're not a revolutionary, Sieg. You're just a man who couldn't let go of the past."

"Enough!" The word erupted from him with the force of a grenade, scattering his steam in violent patterns. "You think you can stand there, so smug, so superior, and judge me? You're a disgusting sellout! Changing the Tachyon Empire from within? That's bullshit and you know it!"

Pandora's eyes narrowed fractionally as Siegfried's tirade echoed through the messy complex. Somewhere nearby, Acacia lay motionless, his consciousness flickering like a candle in a gale. Leila's breathing had grown shallow, her mind lost to the oblivion of unconsciousness.

This needed to end soon.

"I thought being a sellout implied getting something in return." Water rippled throughout the atmosphere. "Tell me, Sieg, what exactly have I gained from staying? The mountains of paperwork? The politics? The constant reminder that the system we fought to protect needs to change?"

"Then why stay? Why defend an Empire that—"

"Because someone has to make that change happen." Pandora stepped forward, her gaze unwavering. "Even if it takes me a thousand years, I won't rest until this rotten system is properly fixed."

"Fixed? Like you've 'fixed' anything? How many corrupt nobles still walk free? How many disenfranchised still face persecution?" He gestured wildly. "The system is broken beyond repair, Pandora. It can't be salvaged, so the best we can do is just abandon it and move on. You're fighting for a lost cause!"

"You think the alternative is better? What would you have us do? Turn our backs on the very society we fought to protect and join the criminal underworld?"

"Yes! We can live freely in Desperado—beyond the Empire's reach!"

"All because you can't move on from Bianca..."

"D-don't you dare bring her into this! You don't get to speak her name! Not after what happened!"

"Ah, there it is." Her tone softened, her expression reflecting a sadness as deep as the sea. "The crux of the matter. Even now, you can't face the truth."

"Stop." His voice was barely a whisper.

"Bianca died of her own will. Nothing you could have done would have changed that."

"Shut up!" His scream shattered the night. Steam billowed around him, a maelstrom of grief and rage given form. "I won't listen to this anymore! I'll kill you! I'll tear this whole city apart if I have to, but I'll kill you!"

And in response, the ebony woman could only sigh.

"As I expected, you haven't changed a bit." She shifted her stance as the rippling water became more noticeable, and she slowly inhaled. "Very well. Since words have failed to get through to you, perhaps pain will suffice. This time, you won't leave until you understand."

"...What?" His voice grew devilishly low as his sight narrowed. "Do you think I'm afraid of you, Pandora?! Do you think that just because you've gotten a little stronger, you can beat me?!"

Reality seemed to recoil as «Deathblossom» erupted in its full glory. The cerise-colored steam coiled around him like chains of damnation.

"I don't just think that, Sieg. I know it."

Even as Nemesis's features distorted, she simply stood there, an unmoving monolith in the face of his transformation.

Their gazes locked.

Blood red stared into gold.

Then, as if responding to a signal only they could discern, they lunged.

The air screamed in protest as their paths collided with the force of colliding meteors.

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