NOVEL WEB Chapter 440: Alone.
"Something troubles you, My Lord?" Giza questioned Umbra, stopping within her void with a perplexed air to her person, I am also slightly affected by your mood so I too am troubled," She admitted. "Is this regarding the incident from a few days ago?"
"Yes," He answered without missing a beat, taking in a deep breath of the cold and lifeless environment causing chills to run across his body. "Every time I think about who that Buche person is supposed to be I get more curious."
"Hm," The Dark Emissary seemed even more troubled now that she had been made privy of his thoughts. "I suppose there should be a little intrigue, even I do not know how he managed to seize the mind and freedom of those creatures entirely, there were two perfect consciousnesses within every single one of them, two souls within the same vessel."
"That's what's been on my mind, I don't know who he is but it's a unique skill that I have never seen before." Umbra pointed out and she agreed with a nod. "That said, he is still a coward; a dangerous variable that could put my goals at risk of failure. Given the chance, should I meet someone like him- the only thing to do in that situation is kill him."
"Truly, while my mind and body cannot be controlled without my permission, yours could be harmed by his strange powers, that is what alarmed me when we encountered him." Giza shrugged, taking his hand and pointing in the direction if their destination. "We are a little over three weeks worth of time from our destination, shall we continue?"
"I want to test something first." Umbra shook his head, refusing her suggestion and making a swirling motion with his free hand prompting her to take them to the populated side of reality, and so she did without complaint.
Sure enough; as soon as they found and entered the atmosphere of a sentient star's farthest habitable orbit, a ship that had been minding its own business diverged and began sailing in their direction, cutting through a belt of asteroids in its approach and nearly exploding.
Umbra and Giza watched with a fatigued curiosity as the vessel broke in half and a small podshot out from inside of it with a sole survivor on the approach, a young woman.
"What is the meaning of this unexplained madness?" Giza shook her head in disbelief.
"So, Buche didn't die back in that place you erased, he's been waiting for us to emerge again, just as I suspected." Umbra rubbed his forehead, frowning so hard that his flesh cracked, revealing black miasma beneath his skin. "And yet, rather than making me want to meet him, all this does is fuel my desire to kill the fucker!" He clenched his fists with his teeth grinding and his jaws locked.
"Shall I wipe them out then?" Giza raised her hand toward the approaching vessel, ready to erase it and everything behind it as she had done before when he grabbed her wrist with an expression of horror, and lowered it. "...My lord?"
"No!"
"Why?" She asked curiously, raising her hand a second time."
He would have attacked her if she had not paused in bide of his approval, even knowing that she had warned him of this exact act before he acted without a thought, none of that mattered before the man who had lost everything and then been used as a battery for years, simply because in that small vessel coming toward them was a woman who bore the splitting image of his lost love, the woman that he was still hung up on, the woman who Sol had forgotten and replaced with new people.
"It's Jun-"
"That is not your past lover, Umbra," Giza once again dropped the formalities watching the darknesss inside of him flicker and dim like a light would. "This is his doing, do not fall for the tricks of the same man you call coward!" She dragged her hand away from him and stood before him blocking his view of the woman's approach. "Listen to me-"
Giza froze in shock, Umbra pushed her hand out of his way and then pushed her head to the side as he passed her, seemingly trapped in his own world while staring at Jun. "It's her, freckle for freckle."
"You are being deceived my Lord," She shook her head, reaching for him again amidst her turn but froze a second time when Umbra swatted her hand away the same moment as she held on to him.
"...Umbra!" She screamed, there was no power behind her voice just a crack, there was a feeling swelling deep within her chest that she had never felt before, unbeating as her heart was it began aching, her fingertips and her toes felt colder than they should have, and her face despite the atmosphere was hot, so hot that her nose and ears became flushed. "Umbra!" She called to him again, but not even once did he spare her a glance, his back remained turned as he anticipated the arrival of Buche's messenger.
"Stay put and stop being a nuisance!"
His words were meant to be dismissive, but they had the opposite effect, they tore, they ripped, they cut like a thousand blades of salt.
"I am a nuisance?" She asked with her mouth half agape, barely loud enough for herself to hear as she stared at her feet. "Me?" She stared at his back with a complex frown unable to process this new feeling tearing away at her insides and why his words made her feel the need to disappear into her void and never return.
"I am not... what is this?" She sucked in a breath and crouched rubbbing her eyes when her vision fogged. "I only have the desire to help you right now, my existence is yours to manipulate as you see fit, how could I possibly be a nuisance?" She asked, confused.
"What is this horrible feeling?" Giza slowly raised her shaking hand and shoved it within her torso, rummaging about using every method she could tink of to ease the phantom pain eating away at her, but not ever her power could do this, she was hurting from an emotion she had never experienced before and it was tearing her apart from the inside.
"What do I do?" She spread her hands wide, taking hold of the fabric of reality before her as if it were a sheet and dragging it around herself, vanishing into her Void just as the first tear fell to the ground, umbra heard the droplet hit the dirt, but glancing back he saw nothing, so made no attempt to find her, not that he would have done anything either way.
By herself within the Void dimension, Giza's tears flowed as black as the space around her, her mouth opened and her lips quivered; pained screams echoed across the silence, but not once did she make a sound one could hear, for without the presence of another inside of her home-dimension to give her existence material meaning, she too was only a part of the void.
And so as she had done whenever she was by herself, she slowly faded into the darkness until no trace of individuality remained.
"I do not want to be... how could he so easily replace me?" Her silent voice caused the darkness itself to tremble, sending ripples across every shadow cast under every light in every direction. "I-I ...what if he chooses her over me, what if Buche has the power to bring the dead back to life and that trulyy is Jun, what if I am left behind again?"
She thought back to the day Sol had left the Grand Collective and went to Source, how the light he shared with her had brought her warmth, peace and a longing she had never felt before, and how she hated the absence she caused and represented because of it.
"Nobody trusts the darkness, they only ever fear me, they ridicule me, scorn and abandon me for even the slightest sliver of light and hope; the absence of darkness and despair."
Ever since the first conception of light, she had been the victim of neglect, ridicule and contempt.
"Will I ...be alone again?"