Chapter IX: Blind Eternity

"Please—" Akoni wanted to speak, but he couldn't—not when there were two creatures trying to kill him. He had to focus on not dying before he could even think of conversing with his partner.

He knew that he couldn't win in terms of experience. Sachi's specialty—killing—lay in this very field, and killing him wouldn't require her to even lift a finger. He'd seen her end lives with just the firing of a bullet or a thin slit to the throat—he knew just how dangerous the girl was.

Yet, he could feel the worry emanating from his opponent—she couldn't kill him either. As long as the source of eternal life remained rooted—etched on to the very depths of his throbbing heart—death was something that neither of them could inflict upon him.

"You fool, Akoni." It was strange to hear such condescending words come out from such a sweet voice—but he supposed that he had experienced stranger things in his life. "Are you not on my side? Do you not want to help bring the very essence of life upon this world?"

He turned back to form a reply—and just as he did, the assassin plunged forward, securing a slice into the side of his neck—but the agony only lasted for a moment. The part of him that was Xerneas had worked its magic, and the fatal cut healed in an instant.

"I am helping you live." Yes, he got where Xerneas was coming from, but her twisted form of justice needed to stop there and then. "Are you not grateful that I am doing this?

"This isn't how it's supposed to be," the redhead protested, glaring up into the cervine's dark eyes—and those optics that were once filled with wisdom and kindness were now stone-cold, containing nothing but a quiet determination to achieve her goal.

Struggling to talk while evading an Oblivion Wing from Yveltal—he cursed under his breath for the six months he had spent comatose in the prison of Life—Akoni opened his mouth yet again. "I understand that you have good intentions," he gasped out, "and I am grateful. But I'm supposed to be dead—and so are you. Why can't you just accept that and bring this pointless struggling to an end?"

"I am sure that Arceus would grant me some form of second chance," Xerneas mumbled. "But something as trivial as a thousand more years of waiting pains me. This world has already functioned for a thousand years without my life. It cannot survive any further."

"You are blinded, sister." Destruction's tone was pained—yet, there was a ting of frenzied desperation to his voice as he spoke. "Arceus has told us to do this because he has seen into the future. I am sure he has another plan to keep the earth from wilting."

The deer's face twisted into a patronising sneer. "Say what you want, but I will not allow your reign of death to pollute the world any longer." The firm look in her irises were absolute. "My death was because I wanted to give out life eternally. I will not have my death be in vain."

"Xerneas, please." The teenage boy stepped in front of his so-called partner—in truth, he didn't want to work with her at all, but Arceus had deemed it so and he had no choice in the matter. "I understand what you want to do, but you have to stop. This isn't right."

Her eyes hardened in response, and she glared down at the boy—he was but an insignificant mortal in front of her. They may have been friends, but for the sake of her goal, she was willing to betray him if he didn't understand her viewpoint.

"You should keep quiet, Akoni." Her tone was clipped as she took a step forward. "You are, after all, the container to my soul. You have accepted that you are supposed to be dead—and I have not. Your mind and 'life' is owed to me."

With that, her eyes flashed a bright blue—she knew that she wouldn't be able to fight against them without a physical form. Akoni's body had built up a resistance to her power—he was made to be a part of her.

A gasp was drawn from the back of the boy's throat, and his amber eyes widened as he tried to call out a warning—but his breath was waning and his voice couldn't come. "Sa—"

Blinking, the blue-tressed female reared her head from where she'd been preparing her next attack, and she paused to stare in shock at the scene in front of her—Xerneas' silhouetted form was fading, the light losing its shape and being sucked back to the very core of the teenager's heart.

Akoni seemed to shut down, his muscles loosening as his limp frame took a plunge to the ground—only to be held in place by some unknown force like a puppet who was useless without its strings. His optics dulled for a split-second, but Xerneas' signature cobalt hues replaced them—right down to the tiny crosses in his irises.

She wants to fight back, Sachi mused, and took a step back as she studied the teenager in front of her—and her voice was quiet; she hardly dared to speak to the entity before her, standing across her with all the demeanour of a regular teenaged boy. "Akoni? Can you hear me? It is—"

"I suggest that you save your energy for this actual fight," Xerneas interrupted, unclenching her fists and glaring down at the smaller girl—then, she stretched out one of Akoni's hands, lips curling into a tired smile as a mask appeared in her hands.

"This mask was proof that he remembered something," she murmured. "It was fortunate that he did. This way, his body can fully utilise my powers—and I will be able to stand on your stage as your equal, Princess RInne."

A noiseless grunt coursed through Sachi's shoulders, and she aimed her blade for the boy—what used to be the boy's—chest. "I would appreciate if you did not call me that," she snapped. "I am not a princess any more, nor is my name Rinne—and to hear that sinful name from your body brings me nausea."

She really did want to retch as she steadied her sword, and she could taste the bile brimming on her tongue as she plunged it through her opponent's chest—but she was an assassin. She was supposed to have embraced the notion of cold murder long ago.

Akoni—rather, his body—simply inclined his head towards her, the wound—raw and bloody and clumsily made—closing up in a matter of seconds. "It is no use," Xerneas countered. "You have tried that trick already. It will not work."

And, for the first time in her life—dating back to the time where she was royalty and things went according to how she deemed it to—she was at a loss of what to do.

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His body felt heavy. It felt like he was drowning, drowning in a sea full of debris and pollution that served no purpose but to suffocate him further—and he hated it. He couldn't move one bit—no matter how much he wanted to fight back against Xerneas' toxic grip, he couldn't.

The most he could do was turn his head, and it seemed that he had lost all control of his body—he only floated in an abyss of darkness, and the brief glimpses of the outside world that he caught were through a glimmer of light acting as a window—was it what remained of his eyesight?

He lost sense of time—and the numb feeling telling him to stop being so stubborn had infected his mind; had contaminated it like some bacterial plague, and it had weeded its way through his head like a dirt-covered worm—and it would have taken over him if not for a faint voice ringing at the corner of his ear.

"You can hear me, can you not?" An androgynous tone tried to speak to him, the voice right in the middle of feminine sweetness and masculine grace—and it comforted him in some strange sense. "I will bring you somewhere else. Please wait for a moment."

He wanted to ask just who this unknown creature was and where he was being taken—but he received his answers in a few mere seconds.

The black abyss had given way to a white void of emptiness, but he found himself in greater control of body than before—and with eagerness, he walked forward, trying to find some clue of where he was, but the same voice called out to him once again.

"My name is Arceus," the creature stated behind him, and that alone caused the boy to start—what was the Creator of the world even doing here speaking to him?

"I am quite sure that you have heard of me. Do not worry—I assure you that am on your side, Akoni. After all, I was the one that sent Sachi and Yveltal on this mission to repent for their sins."

Though unsure of what to make of the events spinning in front of him in a messed-up blur, the redhead nodded, the action slow and hesitant—and his chapped lips dared to form a trembling sentence. "It's just Xerneas that is the problem, right?"

Arceus nodded, golden ridges glinting in the white luminescence around the both of them. "Yes. My subject's resistance is quite worrying—however, I think that I have a solution to that."

"Y—You do?" The redhead tilted his head in confusion—then again, Arceus was the creator of this world, and he was sure to know every single quirk or detail that anyone might have possessed in any timeline. If anyone held the answer, it would have to be him.

"You are a part of Xerneas," the Legendary started. "You may have your own thoughts and actions, but your mind is still fused with her's. Do you get where I am hinting at, Akoni? You are a smart child—I know that you know this deep down."

At first, the teenager could only glance back with confused eyes—but then, something took over his body for a few seconds—and he couldn't control the sentence that slipped out. "I can act as her conscience." His mouth went dry. "The part of her mind that knows what's right."

He seemed satisfied with the answer. "Yes," he murmured. "As long as your will is strong enough, her thoughts will inevitably be influenced by yours. But to do that, you will need to have the knowledge you currently missed—and I will give that to you. Do you want this, or—"

"Yes." This answer was his own, truly, and he stared up at the Lord with resolve burning in his amber irises—and along with that very resolve blazed a hunger to know what he had missed over the entirety of the past timeline.

"Please give me the past that I have missed, Arceus."

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welp I finally updated this !!

one more thing; this was originally planned to have 20 chapters but i felt that the second half didn't really fit and was vv stretched, so congrats to me I'm going to end this at 12 chapters or something

this is going to be my shortest novel ever o-o

Anyway, thank you guys so much for 1.2K reads and 142 votes! I really appreciate your support gais <3

Critiques are most certainly welcome, and don't forget to read, vote and give your thoughts in the comments! Please be 100% honest!

~ nyxia ☆