Gone (II)"Go back, Lee."

The same request. The same voice. The same person, and yet, not.

With an appearance so different, with an unfamiliar back turned to him, that his reach never seemed to be enough to be able to grasp it. As if the black monstrous claws hovering behind her were fences and barbed wires separating them, there is a rift that he could not cross. He wondered then; is this how you feel, too

His Commandant is no longer his Commandant. It matters not the amount of time he and his teammates called her so, that is what she will keep telling them. She will remain cold, and their calls will remain unheeded. That bridge has been swallowed by a tide so red.

"Go back. I can handle this."

Such lonely words truly do not suit her.

“You’re not one to go back on your words.” He retorted without any real bite. His approach was slow, more careful than calculated. “‘Don’t carry everything on your own. You can ask for help too.’ That’s what you used to tell me, right”

The moment he reached forward, the skeletal hands spun and burrowed its fingers into the ground, firmly separating them both. Though he wavered momentarily, still, he gently placed his hand upon the cold metal, gazing at the back still turned to him.

“Suppose now I understand what you thought back then.” Came her response, devoid of any comfort. Her head tilted slightly, her hair swaying from her movement. She still refuses to look at him.

“You can’t help「me」, in any case. No one can.’

The finality of her tone is accompanied with resignation and much acquiescence. Though bitter, it lacked any malice or animosity towards him. Rather, the thick regret in her voice is one he recognizes as blame - one she has only ever used on herself. He could already tell that self-patronizing smile is present.

Gurgling sounds filled the room, interrupting whatever thoughts Lee had to say. He gripped his weapons tightly, eyeing the forming hetero-creatures from the accumulated red tide surrounding the room.

And yet, before he could even take his aim, the hetero-creatures had begun struggling and convulsing in pain. Their hellish shrieks sounded as repulsive as grating, rusty metals. Their limbs continued to twist while they were only halfway out of the tide, as if an invisible force was holding them down and tormenting them.

When he looked again, he found her body surrounded by a faint mist of crimson. The impassiveness of her expression, contrasted by a never-before seen cold glint of her eye peeking between strands of her hair had Lee unconsciously step away.

He has never seen such murderous gaze from her.

The cold glance she gave him was like a bubble on a water’s surface - brief, momentary, and almost accidental with the way she immediately closed her eyes, a sigh quietly breathed out. For the first time since he entered this room, she turned to face him fully, that same smile now displayed through the gaps of her skeletal hands.

Whatever resemblance of “human” in her is left in her face and right arm. Lee knows - and has seen - her hidden left arm more closely resembles the claws that follow her, with the sharpness of her fingertips. Its structure is a mere imitation of a human arm, clumsy and frail-looking in design yet somehow sound enough that she could gouge out a Corrupted’s memory core and pierce through a hetero-creature’s head.

Under her long sleeve, her bionic skin had been ripped and melted away, revealing no flesh. Bone structure replaced by black metal. Veins replaced by thin tubes. Blood replaced by vital fluid. Without a body to take back, unseen, she was declared dead–

("Your Commandant is gone.")

Returned from the red lake–

("I’m not your Commandant.")

So why is her gaze and smile exactly the same

The skeletal hands that were embedded into the ground freed itself with minimum effort. One approached him with gentle movement, its fingers loosely wrapping around him. Its thumb faintly swiped over his cheek, then coming up to his head, rubbing his head and ruffling his hair. Lee never broke his eye contact with her.

“You don’t have to help「me」, Lee.”

He could not reciprocate the joy she showed him.

“But now, finally, finally… I can help you.”

The hetero-creatues around them - at one point had multiplied in amount, Lee didn’t realize - began shrieking and convulsing with more violence. The noises they made scratch at his audio receiver, his frown the only evidence of it bothering him. Something is wrong, he knows, but could not put a finger on it.

“Minerva” turned her back against him once more. She walked towards the red-tinted quartz door, the skeletal hand that was wrapped around him floated towards her side once more. She placed her hand upon the crystal with a familiar gentleness, as if it was treasure, and sighed mournfully.

“The tower showed me many things.” She said. Lee couldn’t tell if she was speaking to him or herself. “Many, many horrible things… it was beyond my imagination.”

Her fingers curled into the crystal, cracks began appearing from underneath her palm. Screeches bounced off the wall as if the crystal door was screaming, webs of cracks slowly climbing up, up, up, but not yet shattering.

“I thought to myself, if only I was stronger, if only I had more power, then I could’ve changed something, anything at all. So that all of you wouldn’t need to go through such pain now.” “Minerva” rested her head against the cracked crystal. Then, she turned to face him once more.

“Go back, Lee.”

She smiled a smile that he hadn’t seen since her return, warmer than it has ever been, and it sent a cold chill down his back.

“This time, I will bear all of your pain.”

The crystal door shattered, the hetero-creatures lunged at him with furious roars, and she was deaf to his voice shouting for her as she walked away.