No heaven, no hell, no sleep

John was robbed of his way out, his offensive elementals, Aclysia and most of his mana. There was a light at the end of all of this, however: Thana was bleeding out. He meant that observation quite literally, the wings on her back were growing smaller as they burnt away.

Not that that really mattered when she jumped at him Gnome threw herself between them and miraculously she was there in time. Ungracefully, they rolled over the ground, coming to a halt with Gnome on top of the blood mage. Thana spread her clawed hands. “Yes,” she giggled when Gnome threw a punch, “struggle,” the stone elemental's fist landed in Thana’s ribs, she spat out a bit of blood but kept grinning as she grabbed onto the Gnome's extended arm, “hurt me, kill me, KILL ME!”

The inside of her burning wings suddenly grew spikes, chaotically spread and of varying length they were a sight straight out of a horror movie. They closed on Gnome, who desperately tried to get away but was locked by Thana’s grasp. Like inside an iron maiden, Gnome was penetrated by hundreds of individual spikes.

“Seems like I found a fucking use for these useless shitwings after all,” Thana giggled as she got up. Or tried to as John used the window of opportunity to fire a Mana Ray at the blood mage. “Raaaaaaahr,” she screamed as it hit her in the shoulder. John kept his eye on her status at all times.

The wound actually needed more than the blink of an eye to close, but she was still too quick to allow John to get a second shot in there. With Gnome, his way out had been obliterated, there had to be a way to save her, there had to be, “Why?!” he asked again, “Why won’t you let me save you?!”

“I DON’T WANT TO BE SAVED!” Thana shouted back and jumped at him again. John was all out of allies who could block for him, Mono was too slow, Undine was made of slime, and so Thana now pressed him to the ground. John tried to conjure a Mana Blade, but Thana had none of it. Grabbing both of his hands by the wrist, she pressed them to the ground. Mono was about to fire another bolt from the Lesser Lance of Longinus, but John stopped her. ‘Maybe she will talk,’ he argued. ‘This is a dumb decision, master,’ Mono commented but stayed her hand.

On top of him Thana was breathing heavily, the wings on her back mere flames now, her white hair hung over his face, the blue tips almost touching him. He looked deep into her shattered eyes, the violet color, the golden circle inside, now at a speed where he could barely make out the individual dots.

“Why?” John asked again, he needed an answer, “I just want to help you, why are you this bent on dying?”

Her level was reducing at an abnormal rate now. It seemed her end was closing in. Yet there was no answer, only her eyes, her now expressionless face above his. “You could just stop, stop right now and make amends. You killed people, but from what I have seen this is daily life in the Abyss, you can make amends.” “Amends?” Thana whispered, then her smirk returned, “Who would I make amends too? The families of those I killed? Sure, maybe they deserve it, but I deserve my sleep. To god? Ahahahaha,” she burst out laughing, “If there is a god once I meet him he will have to ask for my forgiveness.”

“Then do it for a selfish reason!” John appealed to another side of her, “Live for yourself, there has to be something you want to do!” “There is one thing….” Thana agreed, John was about to exploit that look of weakness in her eyes when she continued, a fire burning brightly within her, “but it would never be worth going back to being a sack of emotionless shit in the corner of a room. You keep insisting ‘I CAN HEAL YOU, I CAN HEAL YOU!’ but you have no fucking idea what that means. Yes, this decay of my body I can easily fix, I did it the past couple of days by taking my blood back and sure enough, here I am, still alive despite using my powers so excessively. I believe immediately that you can cure my immediate .”

She released John’s left hand from her grasp and tapped against her head, “but you can never fix what they did to me. Removing the device in my brain is the same as killing me.” “What makes you so certain of that?” John had to ask, “maybe there is a way too…” “There is none,” she said with certainty, “I am a blood mage you idiot, you think I don’t know my own body inside out? This one is unsalvageable.”

She lowered her hand on his throat and started him with a grin, “besides, you really think that is all that is fucked up with my head?!” She cackled, “My first thought in freedom was not to thank you, it was to everyone in the room without giving any shits about their alignments, I am a monster, John. There is no healing me; there is only prolonging my suffering in this fucked up world.” The hand on his neck was raised again, and Thana stood up.

“Well, this has given me enough kicks to go on until this life is over,” she said and simply walked away from him, she looked at her hands, then looked at him. Her eyes spelled a certain gratitude towards him, and she had an apologetic smile on her lips, “so I will let you live, you can go now.” The fire behind her back finally died down, “seems I am out of blood.”

John got back on his feet as well. “No,” that was his answer to leaving her behind. ‘I am not losing anyone anymore.’

He still had one chance, one last chance to get Thana out of here. It was unlikely; it relied on Herman and Rave digging him out, it relied on Thana not dying before they stabilized her and it relied on John not screwing up the timing, but there still was a single chance buzzing around. All he needed was a bit more time.

And so he asked a casual question, “How are you still alive when there is no more blood in you?” Thana burst out laughing. “WHAT? You saw me re-growing an arm, continue running with my head chopped off, set crystallized blood on fire, and THAT is your question?!” she made a counter-question, “Okay, that just sweetened my last moments on this fucking rock, congratulations, I am not even mad about the incineration thing anymore,” she continued giggling.

‘Still too soon,’ John thought and moved half of him into position. He checked his and Mono’s mana; they would likely have to perform first aid on Thana with the help of Undine. John watched her level tick down. “Are you still up to something?” Thana joked, “My brain seems to slowly turn to dumbass but even I realize that you starring intensely into the air means that there is SOMETHING about to happen, like what, did you have something behind me the whole ti-“

‘SHIT?’ John thought as Thana turned around and made direct eye contact with the bee, the possessed scouting unit’s stinger aimed directly at her. The blood mage had no illusions that there was something amiss here that was against her interest. She took a swing at the bee, but by now she was slow enough for John to react with ease and so he managed to use the items unique ability.

The paralyzing beam hit Thana straight in the head. John, having concentrated on getting this and ONLY this done, felt the bee getting crushed in Thana’s hand in the same moment.

Thana almost fell down; her whole body suddenly felt very heavy. “What did you do?!” she demanded to know, her emotions burned as hot as before, happiness most and foremost about being able to feel in the first place. Her body, however, turned as numb as it was in that disgusting tank.

“I am paralyzing you, I will get you healed,” John promised. Thana knew that in his mind he was doing the right thing, but all she could do was growl in disdain. “I told you,” she spat out, “I don’t want to get healed.” “I just want you to live!” “YOU THINK I DON’T WANT TO LIVE?” she screamed.

“YOU THINK I JUST WANT TO ROLL OVER AND DIE AFTER LIFE DECIDED TO HAND ME ALL OF THE SHIT IT HAD TO OFFER?! YOU THINK THIS FUCKING DISGUSTING ROOM IS WHERE I WANTED TO BE DONE?! YOU THINK I NEVER WANTED TO EAT SOMETHING? TO HAVE FUN?” she raised her numb hand, slowly as her body refused to react, “You dare think I didn’t make this decision with a BIT of sense? Bitch, I am so insane I loop right back around to being reasonable!”

She tried to breathe but her chest was just so heavy, her legs were about to give in, her eyelids threatened to close. She wanted to die fully conscious, her emotions, even if they were only regret and pain, lulling her into the last sleep, the only sleep she would ever have. “The only way I can keep living how I want is if I can keep hurting people, I don’t want to live on an eternal manhunt for people that deserve to be slaughtered AND EVEN LESS DO I WANT TO MORE OF THE PEOPLE THAT WOULD HELP ME!”

Speaking somehow got easier again, it was like an unknown energy filled her, she had no idea where it came from, nor did she care. For once, the faces that plastered every surface she could lay her eyes on, the faces eternally shifting, whispering, yelling, screaming, they shut up. They were silent; they were finally fucking silent, the only thing aside from the pain that she ever knew, one of the things that had driven her beyond insanity, they were silent. Finally, silent and with their silence came power and when they spoke they all spoke with her.

“This is my life; I get to decide how it ends, I get to decide whether I live or fucking die, I get to decide who takes my life. Not you, you get to mourn me if you are dumb enough to do so, but you do NOT GET TO TELL ME HOW AND WHEN I DIE! NOBODY GETS TO DECIDE WHEN ANY PEOPLE DIE! IF THERE IS A HEAVEN, I DEMAND TO BE THERE, IF THERE IS NOTHING I AM FREE, IF THERE IS A HELL IT WILL BE BETTER THAN HERE!”

Her aura ignited in blue. A pale, ghostly blue, like her hair. It shimmered on her skin. She felt a warmth on her bloodless white skin, her back, the sound of crackling energy, the heat of an otherworldly fire. She had no more blood or mana to burn, but there was one thing she had an excess of right now. Her own emotions.

John could not believe what he was seeing. Thana had formed new wings, six of them, although wings were not the correct term for them. It was more like pillars of pure energy, like the flame of a Bunsen burner, exploding outwards. He had no idea what was going on, but he didn’t need to decide that, the moment Thana pointed her hand at him, it was best to reactivate Mana Protection.

“Soulburn.”

Pale blue fire consumed John’s world. He could see nothing, hear nothing, he was isolated in a world of fire that clashed against his shield. His mana was gone in a second. Then he felt Mono’s mana, there was a comment attached to it, but he didn’t hear it, he only knew the fire. Her mana was burnt away too, and then John felt what it meant to burn. He was reminded of Salamander’s vision, the fire, the fire that burned so many people, only this time he wasn’t the flame, he was the victim. His skin scorched away, his HP reduced drastically, in the blink of an eye almost all of it had vanished.

A moment of relief, of cool, water itself had come to his aid in the form of Undine, she protected him with her own body, healing him at the same time. Even this was futile, as she was evaporated only moments later.

John was certain he would die, ‘I am sorry, Jane,’ he thought and watched his HP tick down, something she could see as well, and he knew that it broke her heart just like it had broken his. 100, 80, 68, 58, 50, 43, 37, 32, 28, 25, 23, 21, 20, twenty, that is when the fire ebbed away and stopped.

Thana stood there, a wide grin, she had burnt everything, her anger, her hate, her disgust, every last emotion. Everything but the joy of feeling itself. She finally fell down.