“Tell me again, why are you like this? I would think more people to be excited about magic and meeting the singular being who is the beginning and the end.”

Bridget and I were stocking inventory. It had been a quiet shift, but it's not like her to prompt idle chatter.

“This too shall pass.”

“What? Come on. I’m being serious.”

“... I used to be very upset. Sad, angry, depressed, and disappointed. Kill the feeling, kill the emotion. In exchange. Joy, happiness, excitement, expectations. This, too, shall pass.

When you told me that you were the one to end everything, I couldn’t imagine that I was the one who would bring a stop to it. I want them all to die. Kill the feeling, kill the emotion. They make it so hard. I want to be happy, but I make it so hard… If everyone else would just die.

If I could just die…

Lawrence wants nothing more than for everything to end.

Kyrie doesn’t believe that, though. She wants everyone to be happy, to reach their full potential. To live alongside sorrow and know joy. To keep pain as a companion and know kindness.

She is everything I wish I could be. But I gave up on that. The people closest to me would never know me. They have already accepted the person they know me to be. I could never be Kyrie.

I am a living contradiction to my own beliefs. I don’t want to be anyone’s expectation. Not yours, not my family’s, not my friends.

And it's lonely.”

***

The palace guardians funneled into the treasury. In rows, they surrounded the intruder.

Myrian led Lumina and myself into the chamber.

The intruder came into view. I still found it hard to believe, even as she came into view—a girl who looked exactly like me.

She had my eyes, my face; she was shorter than me and dressed in Valkyrie armor. She has equipped a guardian.

But that boob armor, though! What the hell?! Is this the ideal self at work? Add another foot to your height, or make them smaller! Seriously.

Wait, what if this is psychological warfare? This is the human who has the Crystal of Triumph. Could they be a pervert, or maybe the breastplate is hollow?

Myrian pointed her rapier toward the intruder. “Surrender and hand over the Crystal of Triumph.”

“I was told just to accept myself. I want to try it once.”

“What are you rambling on about? Crystal of Triumph or not, we have been watching you. We know you can’t—“

The intruder threw her sword at Myrian. As she raised her shield to deflect it, the intruder was already next to Myrian. Summoning her sword back to her hand, she made another quick strike.

“Valoria also knows you. Myrian Starlight. But tell me, have you killed before?”

Wait, did she say Valoria? The guardian she’s equipped with is Valoria?!

Myrian parried the strike, and the guardians shifted their formation to prevent a retreat.

“I am not ashamed to say that I haven’t. And I’m glad that I never have.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Myrian! Fall back! This is not someone you can overpower!” I cried out to the child of my close friend. But was I just a distraction?

“Then know that I, ValKyrie, shall do everything I can to be myself!”

Myrian looked back at me and hesitated as ValKyrie made her attack.

Swords and shields of light were conjured and shattered as a battle worthy of Armageddon shook the halls of the Crystal Palace.

Guardians caught in the maelstrom crumbled as their armor clattered to the ground, and their mannequin bodies were blown apart.

It was all Lumina could do to stand behind me. It hadn’t even been six seconds, and I could feel the air thinning under the pressure of their onslaught.

The magical enchantments waned as the walls began to crumble. ValKyrie wasn’t giving Myrian a choice. I could see the fear on Myrian’s face. She had never once killed. With that look, she was considering it.

ValKyrie eventually took a breath, and Myrian retreated to my side.

“My name is Roselle Vreigard von Kyrie XIV! And you no longer have a chance of winning. Please surrender.”

“Hmph, what will a girl in her lingerie do?”

“Linge- I don’t want to hear it from Tits Magee and her boob armor! I’ll have you know; this is the latest in celestial fashion!”

“Armor is armor! The shape of the plate loses no function by protruding further!”

“You literally can’t see anything beneath you. And you can’t honestly tell me they don’t force you to change the arch of your sword swing!”

“That’s hardly a limitation when I can use magic! And aren’t you supposed to be my descendant? What are you, A? B? Pads?”

It's truly cruel how fate required me to be descended from a line of kindhearted and noble queens. What kind of face was I making? Mother saw me wear it once and cried for the first time in me knowing her.

“I’m going to enjoy mangling you.”

“I was hoping to meet a girl who would literally just kill me.”

A battle between mortal beings was elegant. Something that has continued to be perfected since the time of all-out war against the minions of Darkness.

But fighting on the level of a Magical Girl Queen or the level of Darkness was a more simple affair.

Time stopped as light remained still.

ValKyrie’s neck was torn from its shoulders as the space between them expanded infinitely.

In that same instance, her body aged rapidly before space contracted itself out of material existence.

This was how higher beings fought. In a time before mortal existence, we battled Darkness with concept and creation. No real skill or perfection of the body.

A battle of will and raw power.

“Empty Void, Severing Fate from Flow.”

“!?!”

Time was no longer stopped. Rather, it felt as if time no longer existed.

A sword pierced through empty space as hands from the blade contorted to pull away at the shattering space around it. The arms began to multiply infinite in number as they formed a ring around the collapsed space while wings unfolded from them, again and again, circling and rotating. The sword, now pointing in every direction, became an omniscient eye that cried a tear in the shape of a person.

ValKyrie appeared before me, healthy and whole.

Empty Void—a concept that removes concepts. Time and space, life and death, victory and defeat. A contradiction and a paradox.

One of Darkness’ most effective weapons against us. A verse from oblivion’s song.

“Is this Darkness’ plan? To make a Kyrie who would help carry out the coming oblivion?”

“When Bridget, Darkness, gave me this power, she told me that I am her past; she is my future.

“And you believed him?”

“Hm?”

“That you're some destined one who will go back in time? The original Kyrie was not pulled from the future. She was born from the mother crystal. She doesn’t need you to exist.”

I wasn’t sure if it was hesitation or contemplation. But she made ready on her defense.

I could feel time returning. Will today be our loss? For Darkness to have again run amok in these halls.

“I do not know what this Bridget has told you. But the Crystal of Triumph is the key to unlocking Darkness from his imprisonment. He only needs one who can use it. He stole eight crystals from the palace almost a century ago and hid them from us.”

ValKyrie only smirked at me before vanishing from sight.

***

My reasons are shallow. I can pretend to be Kyrie, but in the end… these thoughts of cruelty. These sadistic pleasures that I can’t help but both feel ashamed and elated.

The face my mother saw. It was the face of someone who was tired of life. So tired that she could die. Not happy that there would be anyone to continue after she was gone.

Kill the feeling, kill the emotion.

She had that same face.

As she fled these halls, I could only think if someone like that wore the same face as me. Maybe oblivion isn’t so bad.