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Remye watched the reunions from what she equated as side lines, and smiled slightly. While there was dread in the swirling chaos above them, still there was hope. And it was time. Remye closed her eyes, and then looked up to the sky, considering for a long moment her options. Destruction’s promise was appealing. She would be powerful, she would strike down any who tried to defy her wishes, and her will would be law. But she was not a force to be reckoned with. She was not a vengeful person, not in this life or the one she tried so vainly to remember.

The choice was simple, really.

She closed her eyes, and made her choice. You will obtain Greater Knowledge, it promised. Remye opened her eyes, watching as her settings warped around her. The green foliage and ruined temple faded away, giving in to the thick greens, branches and vines, leaves all around her. It felt almost like being home, in a forest. She saw the crown in front of her, and stepped forward, one hand going to her chest.

It hurt. Of course it hurt. Sacrifice always hurt, but it was worth it. She hoped, desperately, that it would be worth it. Each scratch and claw and tear allowed something new to filter into her brain, some new part of her showing itself. It’s a long task, but not impossible.

Remye held her hand up in one hand, triumphant even as she stumbled the few steps to the crown.

You have made the correct choice. Your sacrifice will not be in vain.

Remye allowed her Heart to be taken, and found herself crumbling to her knees, eyes sliding shut as memories began to filter out of the hole she had created in herself. They swam like visions in front of her, and she could dimly make them out. Some calling her name, calling *** desperately as they ran forward, shook her, desperate to wake her up… But there was no waking here.

A single thought filtered through her brain with hazy clarity. Please. Let my sacrifice be worth something.

Her eyes slid closed, and Remye fell forward, fading before she hit the ground.

She hums as she ambles through the forest. It’s dark, but dancing orbs of flame surround her in reassuring light and warmth. There is no fear as she tramples around the forest.

*** slows down her pace somewhat when she hears a meek voice. Like a fly to light, she follows the voice until she encounters another ghoul, but this ghoul is smaller and possesses horns different from her own. “Youyou sound scared. Are you lost?” she wonders aloud as she steps closer. She holds out a hand for the other student to take. “I’m ***! Youyou?”

“Maple..”

Floating.

Rika felt like she was floating. Was she still alive? She doubted it. She'd given her heart to Creation to halt the chaos that'd overtaken the shrine. All that was left was to grow cold and die... right?

She wished death would hurry up and come. The dull throb in her chest where her heart had once been was maddening. She wondered if there had been any other option. Had there been a way for her to stop the destruction and stay alive? Maybe, maybe not. There was no sense in worrying about it now since she'd already made her choice. Rika was dead.

No... not Rika. That wasn't her name. That much had made itself abundantly clear, but no matter how she tried to think or how many times she replayed her last few memories, her name only came out as a garbled mess. Why was such a simple concept so difficult to grasp. It was like trying to catch the fog that had surrounded her when she first came into being. Oh well. Nothing to be done now as it wouldn't matter soon anyway. Rika felt tired. So, so tired.

She wondered whether offering her heart to Creation had created a new beginning for the world she'd left behind. She hoped so. A nice, peaceful world where no one had to suffer... that'd be lovely...

Slowly, Rika's eyes fell shut, what remained of her becoming nothing more than a distant memory.

She shouldn’t have been so angry when she was talking to Lizzy that one time during the Student Festival, but the topic that came up had been such a heart ache for her. She’d been battling and struggling to find herself and her place and for others to accept her for her during her entire life. So she couldn’t help but be defensive for her best friend during such a trying time, especially after her curse took over her appearance completely. After all, he was the only one who was actively supporting her during this time, and he had also accepted her for being her.

She wanted to defend Mac with all her heart, that’s why she told Lizzy that he felt like he couldn’t be himself around her. She couldn’t stand the thought of him being stifled for being himself, not when he was so accepting of her. Even if it wasn't her place, she’d be damned if she let that go by without a word.

Eva and Reine's fussing only agitated **** even more. As much as he was overwhelmed with the urge to push away and help himself, he found himself in awe of their complete and urgent worry for him. Each girl did their part to help him up, leading him to the infirmary. His shirt was soaked with red, and he was in pain. But even with such wounds, they teased and poked fun at him, warm smiles on their faces.

"Come on, Puppy. Let's get you checked out before you bleed everywhere." A pause, followed by a deep frown. "And it is our business! You're our puppy!" Said the one with the beautiful blue eyes and dark ebony hair.
"You can sleep in your room once you've been checked out properly, and Eva and I won't leave you alone with that doctor, okay?" Said the other with the long, silver hair. **** was growing tired of fighting them, allowing them to get him the care he needed.

He'd been right, in a way. Hurting had been important, because hurting had given him something to sacrifice.

This is what he'd wanted all along, wasn't it?

(Not the sacrifice. Not service. That was only incidental to what was being offered, and no matter how distasteful it was, Amity was not a man to stand on principles when real goals were within reach.)

A return to nothing. A step back into the boundless fog.

He'd come to the conclusion that curiosity could never be satisfied with incomplete understanding--that it was only by knowing everything that he could silence the endless keening gnawing noise in his heart--and the heady idea that he might be right, that the end of thinking was within grasp, was--the word felt oddly appropriate and he did not know why--a high.

The green crown beckoned. Infinite knowledge. The answers. And finally, a muzzle for the hungry need to know, that need that he had desperately been trying to overcome.

Memories weren't the solution, then. Knowing was, and now he saw that the two were not the same thing. One had to be sacrificed for the other. He laughed weakly: so much effort he'd thought he'd been expending for himself, so many careful minutes spend touching the peeling wallpaper of the Blue Rose and smelling the hot metal of the Forge with intense focus, filing it away. He'd thought he needed to spite the Goddesses by becoming more whole. He still wanted to spite them. He hated them for making him want to know who he was, and he hated them for not telling him. Putting them into a world of monsters and making them earn weapons to fight with, while everyone around him gave up hollow praise for their so-called mercy. Captors and villains.

But for peace--for wisdom and for silence and for an end--Amity would gladly give them, give anyone, give the moon or the strange powerful voice, whatever the hell they wanted. The ending was the same.

He was in the thick of the green-smelling weald, and his hand was on his chest, and he dug his fingers into his heart gladly.

Sacrifice yourself for us.

His fingers sank into the core.

Not for them. For himself.

Scissors snick-snick on the fabric and then teeth tearing desperate to free the heart inside. April's heart. April with her painted toenails and her active hands and her broad smile.

They were coming for him and they were trying to stop him and distract him with his name. But a name was not knowledge. The world was distant and muffled, his fingers were tearing out the memories, and in his desperate struggle to finish the job he tried not to hear them.

A child watching him pull a worn jacket out of a pile of cast-off clothes, and staring blankly when he smiled at her.

Feeling dim and distant and blessedly free of the constraints of what passed for his body, Amity took unsteady steps through the crush of leaves.

Long white hallways. You always were such a ******** were coming for him but they were too late and the silence came in and in the last second before the curiosity was finally, finally, finally destroyed, in the last second when he dropped the heart from his shaking fingers and gave it up to Creation with gratitude for delivering him, he had a moment of doubt.

If he were one of them, he could give that knowledge to everyone. He would set them free. And they would worship him for it. He would not have to crudely take their memories and their loyalty: they would give them to him as his due. Their sacrifices would not be the selfish half-measures he was currently pursuing, but full-hearted gratitude.

He could save them.

April crying on the floor of the bathroom and Tuesday screaming in the next room. With Tuesday fear had crested into his life in an awful, vast wave. Fear he would have to face down. Fear he would have to master.

Fear he would fail to defeat.

He needed to save them and to save himself and as he stood dispassionately on the cold tile watching April twist the ring around her finger and shake he knew he couldn't do it. He couldn't save them. He couldn't set them free.

All he'd ever wanted was to be a hero.

"No one deserved this," he told the crown, told the advancing hazy figures trying to make him hear his name. Or tried to tell them. Nothing came out.

You always were such a ******** up, says the figure in the hallway, and he hadn't understood it then but he understood it now and it was too late, too late, he'd given up his heart again and she had lied: it hurt the first time, it hurt the second time, and it hurt now.

A stronger man could have been a hero. But there was no sense wanting what you couldn't have.

So all he wanted was peace and silence.

“It’s only for a little while, ***.”

“But I don’t want to go.”

“I know. Trust me, it’s not ideal. But you haven’t seen your brother in a while. Jackson’ll—“

“Dad’s going to be pissed.”

A soft sigh. “Yeah. I’ll handle it. And when
Avery’s gone, you can come home.”

“Yeah. Right.” Snort.

Late at night, he wailed on that set of drums. All tension in his body was torn away with every beat. It was an intense way to focus his aggression, and lose himself in a rhythm. Not only was it a release, it was a way to regain something else he lacked. A focus, a pattern, something that made sense. It evened out his spiky life into a tangible sound.

And then there was the peanut gallery...

<> "What're you doin..?" He replied to the voice to whom he couldn't find a face to, <>

...Whatever. He huffed and kept up the pace, his inner voice, oddly female, impersonating the sound of a lead guitar. It didn't even match the beat he was going for, but somehow it made it even more fun. However, a furious woman outside his door seemed to oppose his racket-----