Kanashimi no hōyō

Author note: Hey folks, I’m sorry for my extended absence, despite my wishes otherwise I failed to finish the arc before end of year exams. But they’re all done now so I can get back to a regular schedule once my buffer gets up.
In other news I’ll also be doing a Q&A for the characters in this branch, so start thinking of any questions you’d like to ask. More details on that will be published in the final chapter due to be posted Monday the 26th.
Cheers,
-Pie

---

John Newman let out a wheezing cough as his eyes fluttered open. It was dark. And quiet.

An eerie fog hung in the air, like a thick curtain wrapped around him, obscuring his vision. He couldn’t even see the floor, though he felt solid ground below himself. The vague smell of something burning tickled his nose, and he could hear a crackling fire in the distance, but one was nowhere to be found in this dim and foggy realm.

John’s hand moved idly to his back, wincing as his fingers brushed over his bruised and swollen throat. ‘Weird,’ John mused. ‘I don’t have Gamer’s body… what happened?’ It wasn’t the only question on his mind. He had no clue where he was or how he had come to be there. The last day was all a blur.

“Hello~” a soft voice called, jerking John to attention.

Someone, or something, was moving through the fog. A fox? No… a snake… maybe a girl? It circled him, yet John felt strangely calm. The thing, whatever it was, radiated no hostility. Rather, it seemed curious.

“Who are you?” John voiced back. “What are you?”

“A creature like any other,” the cat replied with a light chuckle, though John felt a sadness buried deep under her light humour.

‘Gaia?’ John wondered, before immediately casting the thought aside. Gaia was not so coy. Whoever this was, John had no reason to trust her — or it. “Where are we?” he asked, regardless.

The coyote shrugged. “Who can say? Perhaps this is all simply a conjuring of your dying brain?”

“I’m dying?”

“I’m afraid so, yes,” the crow cawed.

A splitting pain suddenly caused John to wince, as if somebody had cracked a whip inside his head. Memories of the past few hours came flooding back in. The cave. His mother’s **** and beaten body. Their escape. Fear. Fire. The smell of burnt flesh. “Mom,” John let out a choked sob. Tears blurred his eyes and the smell of crackling flames intensified. His heart beat excruciatingly in his chest and his lungs felt like they were suffocating.

Then he felt something soft and pleasantly warm press against his bare back, as a pair of gentle arms wrapped comfortingly around his chest. The woman took his hands in her own and sung to him in a soothing tone, helping him calm and easing his pain just a little.

“I feel your pain; I know it hurts, John,” she cried with him, her form now unchanging. “Terribly so.”

“It’s my fault,” John heaved strained breaths as his whole body shook. “I couldn’t save her.”

“You’re right, it is your fault,” the woman agreed. Despite the harsh honesty of her words, her tone was tender and reassuring. “You cannot help being born weak, but you let ego and lust cloud your judgement. The suffering of those closest to you was only a natural consequence of your actions,” she explained, her fingers gently running through John’s hair.

“I KNOW!” John shouted back, causing the stranger to flinch. He hadn’t meant to shout, but like everything else, his own body had seemingly slipped from his control. “I KNOW I FUCKED UP. BUT WHAT ELSE COULD I HAVE DONE?!”

“You could have left Red behind,” the woman replied, her voice clear and unapologetic. “You could have sent her back to her father and strengthened yourself — as you said you would do — to one day return. Instead you fucked her… and now Vulpis has fucked and killed your mother.”

It was like his soul was being whipped by every word. The harsh truth of it made John want to curl up in a ball and will his heart not to beat. He curled up in the woman’s arms. The dying part was coming anyway.

“Did you think you were doing the right thing?” the woman asked. Her voice had resumed its tender tone.

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

The woman nodded her head in understanding. “What about now? Do you think letting yourself waste away in my arms is the right thing to do?”

“...I don’t know.”

“Vulpis still breathes.”

“...Yes,” John replied miserably.

“While your mother burns.”

“...”

“And your friends are still in danger… Red, Moira, Saccharine. You still have a lot left to lose,” the woman pointed out.

John’s fist unwittingly clenched. “But what can I even hope to do? Vulpis is too strong, I can’t beat him… I tried, but I can’t.”

“John,” the woman replied, gently cupping his jaw in her hand and turning his head to face her for the first time. A pale but warm face smiled back at him with eyes the colour of a crimson Autumn. “You can beat him, for I am with you now,” she said, pressing her pale lips against his.

John inhaled the taste of her deeply, his body tingling as a cold but fiercely burning flame ignited in his heart as he allowed her inside of himself. A pain, a thousand times worse than the heartbreak his mother’s burning image caused, seized him. A pain older than several millennia, a history of fire and blood, of marching armies and the rolling thunder of artillery mercilessly beating the earth. A history of lives thrown away against hails of bullets, a history of women and children huddled in their homes as war was fought in the streets outside. Of air raid sirens. Of bombs. Of ****. Of fear. Of ****… of despair.

It was horrendous. Her pain was horrendous. How could she possibly have borne it alone for so long?

“It’s okay, John,” she cooed into his ear. “Fret not about me, it was the burden I was born to bear. You have your own issues to contend with.”

John frowned at her words. Her burden was a weight greater than that of the world itself. It wasn’t at all fair she had to bear it alone.

“You’re a sweet boy at heart,” she sighed regretfully. “I truly pity what will come of our journey together… but there is no other way. For now, wake from **** and return to life; there is much to be done and only one so uniquely poised to do it as you.”

---

John tried to take a deep breath and immediately started **** as he stirred from the realms of unconsciousness.

“You’re still alive, boy?” Vulpis sneered as his clawed hand still throttled John. “Good.”

He barely heard the warg as his eyes glazed over the message that had appeared in his FOV.

New Quest: The Power of my Enemy
[Split objectives]
Find a way to cure the corruption.
or
Find a way to deepen the corruption.
Current corruption status: Seed [1/4]
Rewards:
10 000 EXP and a Skill Evolution Point
10 000 EXP and an Arcana

Achievement Unlocked: Celestial Courtship
You’ve managed to unlock a Divine Quest. Play your cards right and you might just earn yourself a powerful ally… or powerful enemy should you play them wrong.
+2 WIS
+2 CHA

Sorrow’s Embrace [Corruption]
Rank: Seed [1/4]
Power Unlocked: Neurotic Discharge
Severe stress, anxiety, or depression may spontaneously cause the Gamer’s mana to explode. Deals severe damage to targets in close proximity, but grows weaker the further away the target. This attack will shatter the Gamer’s capacity to store mana for 24 hours, preventing regeneration or the beneficial consumption of mana potions. Max DMG = MPx3

‘Oh…’ John barely thought before a tingling sensation began to build inside him, all packed into one tight little space over his heart.

Vulpis’ nostrils flared briefly, as if sensing the danger. The muscles in his fur-covered arm tensed as he attempted to cast John away, but it was too late.

The mana inside John exploded, and he cried out as his vision was engulfed in radiant blue light and he felt a burning pain akin to the skin being ripped from his flesh. Vulpis similarly roared in pain as he took the brunt of the blast, dropping John and attempting to shield himself with a wall of flames.

258 DMG

188 DMG

145 DMG

116 DMG

61 DMG

19 DMG

3 DMG

...

John hit the ground chest-first with a hard thud and almost bit his tongue in the process. His whole body shook as he spluttered and coughed, greedily gulping down as much air as he could manage at once. His body felt tired and sluggish, but at the same time he felt an exhilarating sense of catharsis. But as he looked around the battlefield with hazy eyes, his heart fell.

Despite suffering a hit that would have wiped John’s entire health bar, Vulpis was still alive. The warg’s hell-flames had subsided somewhat, and his coat of black fur was now a patchwork of muddy and singed hairs. Several blotches of fur had been burned off entirely, revealing pale skin covered in a lattice of scars. Vulpis snarled as he started picking himself off the ground, cradling his left arm as he did and indicating that something might be broken.

Yet the Neurotic Discharge had hurt more than just Vulpis. Guilt plagued John as he looked around at the people scattered across the clearing. The closest were unmoving while others displayed varying degrees of damage from mild nausea to deep gashes and wrecked armour. Arnold was among those injured, but not seriously so, and had joined his daughter in looking after Miranda. Elsewhere, John caught sight of Moira’s flaming hair, who desperately chanted a prayer over a malformed body, charred a crusty black and scarlet. Meanwhile, Cheyenne was helping Red and Adelia to their feet. It seemed that party members were spared from the blast. Thank god.

“How destructively careless of you to use such an attack without any regard for your allies,” Vulpis chuckled as he straightened himself. The warg’s words stung. Sure, he’d had **** in using Neurotic Discharge. But the thought that he would have opted not to, given the choice, eased his guilt only a little.

“How is it you’re any better than me?” Vulpis continued his goading. “You’re-”

“Quit yapping like a fucking chiwawa, you ignorant twat,” Chey cut-in as she leapt forward with claws and fangs bared.

Vulpis’ flames flared, but it was too late and Chey was already on top of him. She wasted no time taking a swipe at her brother’s jugular, which was swifty blocked by one of Vulpis’ fiery gauntlets. John knew just how painful the warg’s grip was, yet Chey didn’t so much as wince as his hand caught her arm, instead immediately following up with a slash to the thigh. Vulpis howled as Chey’s claws raked along his flesh, and his grip on her arm loosened enough for her to wrench it free as he collapsed to one knee. But the warg’s flames immediately went to work dancing around the wound and sealing it until only an unsightly scar remained. He was back on his feet moments later, turning what should have been Chey’s advantage into his own with a series of explosive assaults towards her flesh. It took everything the warg huntress had to defend.

Red briefly regarded John as if to check on his condition before darting in to assist her aunt. Her entrance briefly caught her father off guard, but moments later his flames were back to full ****, teasing, whipping, and lashing out at the two women with wild abandon. John couldn’t just sit by and watch. His eyes fell on his twinblades, and he began crawling to where they lay, hoping Vulpis would be two focused on his assailants to notice.

But a ghastly scream diverted his attention back to the deadly fray. Vulpis cackled as his hand tightly gripped his sister’s silken black hair, and without so much as a flicker of hesitation, his hand ignited against her face. Chey’s body crumbled as she screamed and clutched her face. Red stood no chance defending for two. John had to act. Now.

Finally his hands grasped the hilt of his swords and using them as a crutch he struggled to his feet. But when John turned to face his enemy, he hesitated.

‘Your words will cut deeper than any sword,’ a voice, hardly louder than a whisper, echoed in his mind, before continuing in a sing-song voice; “It be by silver you seek to reclaim your white sheep, else it be not victory but tragedy you reap.”

He frowned momentarily, before understanding finally dawned on him. “You asked what makes me better than you…” John began; his voice was hoarse after being asphyxiated and was nowhere near as clear as he’d meant to be. Nonetheless, Vulpis’ sharp ears perked as John spoke, and the warg soon turned to face him. John cast an emploring look towards Red, who after a second’s hesitation nodded and dragged Chey out of harm’s way. Adelia immediately rushed to attend to them both with what little treatment was available.

“Well, it’s quite simple really,” John continued as he gestured around towards his friends and allies. “I have everything you want: friends and allies I can count on, love and respect from my family…”

“Friends?! Love?!” Vulpis roared with laughter as he disinterestedly tossed a fireball towards a group of Order Knights who were lining up shots at him. “Save the half-baked power of friendship horseshit for juvenile shows on the telly.

“It’s true,” John replied calmly, the ghost of a smirk appearing on his face. “And do you know what I’m gonna do once this is all over? I’m gonna fuck your daughter. Then I’ll fuck your sister and your wife too.” As he spoke the warg’s laughter died to a quiet snarl. In all honesty John didn’t feel much like sex at all. He just wanted to sleep for a week and drown another three in video games. But that didn’t matter; what did was agitating the warg. “They’re gonna love every second of it and won’t spare a moment’s thought for you because I am better than you.”

The warg’s brow twitched as he sauntered over to John with imposing steps. “You blow hot air, but you’re not going to live to see the morning coming, boy.”

“But the real tragedy here is that you had everything you could have wanted and you threw it all away.”

Vulpis swung at John with everything the warg had. The flames on his fiery gauntlet flickered and sparked in radiant red. But the blow was expected and John ducked away on what little energy he had left. Vulpis kept swing and John continued to dance backwards and, save for a few close calls, managed to keep just far enough out of the reach of those devastating flames. Neurotic Discharge had destroyed John’s ability to cast spells, meaning he could only use melee attacks to deal damage. Yet fighting the warg at close range was futile while he was alight, making it critical that John negated them as a factor.

“Your family loved you! But you burned them too bad by becoming this monster, buddy.”

“Silence!” Vulpis roared back, the hatred in his eyes burning as hot as the flames coating his body like a spectral suit of armour.

But underneath it all there was insecurity. John could see it clearly now, as if he was looking in a mirror. ‘I won’t ever let myself become that,’ John thought resolutely. “Red chose to run away with me, and you saw just how ready Chey was to put you down. How can you possibly think you’ll have a life after this? It would be a shallow, toxic thing at best, stained by hatred and despair — and it would be entirely your fault. You’re a shit brother, a shit husband, and a shit father-”

“That’s enough from you, welp!” the flames on Vulpis’ body radiated explosive pulses of heat in time to every lunge.

They were out of the clearing now and into the forest. Shrubs and trees began to catch ablaze as the two of them played a game of cat and mouse. In hindsight it might not have been the best idea to lead the walking torch through the woods, but John had to get him away from everyone else.

“I don’t need them. They can burn with you for all I care! All that matters is her.”

“We both know you’re lying to yourself. Red, Chey, Lia… you need them, desperately so. We wouldn’t be here if you didn’t,” John felt the solid ground beneath him give way to the sand of the lakeshore, and he grinned openly as his voice dropped to barely a whisper. “But they don’t need you, and that thought kills you inside. You’re still just the same weak, pitiable creature you were born to be. They loved you, sure, but you were just something to be looked after and looked down upon — like a pet.”

It was a dark, intimate secret. A feeling John had no right to know. The flames died as Vulpis stared at John in shock. “That’s right,” John continued icily. “You’ve been abandoned even by the one you claim to devote yourself to. You’re done. Asshole.”

The warg’s pale lip quivered momentarily before he released a single, ghastly wail. His fur crackled and sparked with flame, and John dived into the lake water moments before Vulpis exploded. The warg’s own Neurotic Discharge danced in a raging array of hellfire across the water’s surface, raising its temperature several degrees in the span of a few seconds while mana particles nipped and ate at John’s flesh. His senses were overrun by a pulsing pain and his body reflexively puked a mixture of vomit and blood, releasing what little air John held and filling his lungs with lakewater.

It suddenly grew dark as the light show above faded, and a huge weight seemed to press down on John as he struggled to the surface. His body was sluggish and he couldn’t breathe. As his vision clouded he couldn’t help but think it was funny in a dark way. He’d spent the night desperately trying not to burn alive and now he was drowning. But Vulpis was finished; if not by John, then someone else still able. Without his flames, Vulpis was nothing more than an ugly mutt waiting to be put down.

‘At least this way everyone else will be safe,’ John found himself surprisingly at peace while his body fought for air that wouldn’t come. ‘I’ll see you again soon, Mom,’ he thought as his eyes began to flutter closed.

But it seemed he wasn’t allowed a heroic **** by drowning, at least according to the crimson cloak and pair of arms that wrapped around his torso and hauled him to the surface. John began coughing and retching as soon as his head was pulled above water, and he found himself on dry land shortly after, where Red collapsed next to him. “You still owe me for getting vomit on my cloak, no way I’m letting you drown on me,” she barked at him.

John looked at her with befuddlement as his lungs filled with air once again before releasing a breathless laugh. “Well, I’m sure the vomit’s been thoroughly cleansed by now…”

Red let out a dry chuckle and lightly punched him, before surprising him with a passionate kiss on the lips. It was to be an intense but short-lived moment, however, as a heaving sob turned their attention away from each other.

Vulpis lay curled up on the ground, naked and teary-eyed, with flesh burned and bleeding in several places. The trees in the area had been reduced to barren pillars of charcoal, but there was no sign of the malicious flames that had scorched them. It seemed the fight had completely left the warg.

Quest Complete: Little Red Riding Hood
Rewards:
+1 Skill Evolution Point
+5000 EXP
The Token of Wrath

Achievement Unlocked: With our powers combined…
Defeat an enemy over 50 levels higher than you with the combined might of your party and allies.
+2 END
+2 WIS

Achievement Unlocked: Silver Tongued Swordsman
Win a fight using taunts, charm, or reason.
+3 CHA

John barely paid the notifications any mind. He was too tired to give a shit right now.

Red, meanwhile regarded her father with a look of detest. “If you’re trying to drown yourself, there’s a lake right there,” she snarled at him. There was no sympathy to be found in her voice.

“Red?! John?!” the voice of Adelia called through the lingering smoke and trees. The blonde emerged shortly after, supporting Cheyenne with one arm. Order Knights followed soon after, training their rifles on the blubbering warg that had caused them all so much grief. Moira, however, was nowhere to be seen. One glance at the sobbing creature, a mere flicker of its former self, told everyone it was over.

“We’re okay,” Red replied wearily as she climbed to her feet and embraced her mother and aunt.

“I’m so glad, my darling,” Adelia replied softly.

Chey was the first to pull away from the hug. She turned to face John, a mix of respect and regret in her blue eyes. The upper-left side of her face was swollen with a blistering red and black burn. Her eyebrow and a good deal of her silken-black hair was missing as well. How she was even on her feet, let alone speaking, with a wound like that was beyond John.

The warg seemed to read the question on his mind. “The pain went away as the fire ceased burning,” Chey answered, gesturing around at their smokey surroundings. “But you’ve left all of us wondering: how the bloody fuck did you manage that?” she asked, glancing at her brother’s figure.

John paused for a moment, wondering just how much he should tell them. Should he explain that the same creature that had corrupted Vulpis had done the same to him? Probably. But not now. He didn’t want to spoil everyone’s relief, and in any case, he had a few things to figure out before he shared. “A spider told me not long ago that words were my sharpest weapon,” John replied. “So I reminded Vulpis of just how much he’s lost.”

Chey snorted through her nose but otherwise didn’t respond. Instead, she turned to where her brother huddled on the ground. Raw contempt burned in her eyes as she approached him. “Take a look at yourself now, a pathetic little brat beyond repair,” she sneered and kicked him forcefully in the ribs, sending him sprawling across the scorched earth.

The muscles on her taut body flexed as she knelt down on top of him, with one knee digging into his chest. Her fingertips lightly playing across his neck before she forcefully tilted his head to look her in the eyes. “Now then, little boy, I only want one thing from you,” her voice was devoid of any emotion save for a cold-hearted rage. “An apology, for all the mischief you’ve caused.”

The shell formerly known as Vulpis looked up at her with a wide-eyed and gaping expression. John didn’t need to see the warg to know that there was only a hollow despair to be found in those eyes. Only a few short seconds passed before Chey sighed and shoved her brother’s head back into the dirt, realising it was a hopeless request. “I ought to be cruel and **** you,” she told him bitterly. “Considering what you’ve done to my family and I, there would be no question of it being appropriate or justified… but unfortunately, looking at you as you are now, I know it would bring me no satisfaction. Instead, I think I’ll sit here and watch you slowly bleed out until you’ve taken your last breath.”

Tears flowed freely from Vulpis’ eyes as he openly wailed like a man who had truly lost it all. Everyone watched on with expressions ranging from grim satisfaction to outright disgust. There was no sense of justice about it, yet nobody felt inclined to provide the mercy of outright killing him.