The Twelve Apocalypses: A Damned Soul's Path to the Abyss-Chapter 124 Woe

My reaction was instinctual. A sharp jerk of my arm batted Mia's left hand away, and before her right could forcibly rearrange my facial features, I had vanished in a cloud of mana that left behind a perfect Hayden-replica.

The technique Mia had taught me herself was never easier to use. It felt like I could shift my relative position in space with a mere thought, and conjure a whole host of illusionary clones just as easily.

Unfortunately, Mia knew the technique as well, and my use of it only seemed to stoke her anger even higher. Mana swirled around her as she began fueling her attacks with magic. The hiss of rage that left her mouth would have tickled all my primal fight-or flight-responses, if I still had any left after my transformation into a demon.

"Glaustro! What's happening?!" The hurried shout was all I could manage as I desperately played keep-away with an enraged kitty cat. A kitty cat who was using the spells I had helped her learn in an attempt to end me, with frightening efficiency.

Glaustro cursed, and Bronwynn seemed petrified. They both hesitated just long enough for Mia to snag my cheek with her claws, extracting a thin trail of blood. The fact that my blood was now azure mixed with black was enough to distract me into making another mistake. This time, a thin cut burned its way across my left thigh, perilously close to a major artery.

For a moment, my instincts went into overdrive. My mana circulation sped up immensely, and I was halfway through a blow of my own before I remembered this was Mia I was fighting.

Dread pooled in the bottom of my stomach. We were in the Abyss. If she killed me here, my death would be final.

But that worked both ways. Even with my life on the line, I knew beyond any doubt that I couldn't bring myself to attack her in earnest.

I diverted my mana just in time, barely managing to avoid another swipe from Mia's claws in the process.

"Glaustro!"

"She's gone feral, damn it," the older demon snapped, worry roiling through his aura. My new senses confirmed he was as conflicted as I was, trying to figure out how to approach the situation without harming Mia. "She's fully sunk into her Emotion. We need to either wake her up or wait it out."

"And how long does that take?!" I demanded, then squeaked in fright when Mia's claws got a bit too close to the space between my legs. "Seriously?! Can you just stick to trying to kill me, woman? Major maiming is not okay!"

There was no response. The look in her eyes was as murderous as ever.

Thankfully, that was when Glaustro finally got off his butt and did something. As Mia lunged after me, stone rose up to swallow her, encasing most of her body in less than an instant and leaving just her head and arms to flail helplessly.

Free from the threat of evisceration, I finally got a good look at the new demoness since her emergence from the station.

I was glad to see that, in spite of her current state, Mia had apparently been more self-aware than I upon her ascension. She was wearing a tattered black robe. I had no idea where she had gotten it, but at least I wasn't fighting an enraged cat girl in the buff.

I was also oddly relieved that not much had changed about her, overall. Her animal features were a bit more conspicuous. Though her lower half was currently buried in stone, my recent memory helpfully provided the image of a larger-than-ever tail, writhing in the air behind her and poofing up as she tried to kill me. The fur around her arms and legs was more pronounced, looking at once softer and more dangerous than ever. That had a lot to do with its new metallic sheen, coupled with its raven-black color.

The most striking change was the addition of horns. They were thinner and more elegant than mine, two simple bone-white protrusions that swept towards the back of her head and stuck close to her skull. They weren't the only alabaster feature she had developed, though. Her skin was now as pale as her horns, providing a startling contrast to her black fur.

Of course, that left the one part of Mia I had never been able to glimpse before: her soul.

Just like mine, it was radiant, making her an archdemon. Just like mine, it shone and sparkled like a night sky or some precious jewel. Her essence was positively glowing with power. The only thing that marred the whole impression was her Emotion, writhing around her and reaching for all of us like a hungry beast. And it wasn't something nice and cuddly like Bronwynn's.

Vengeance. Mia was a demoness of Vengeance, and she was lashing out at everyone around her indiscriminately.

This doesn't make any sense, I thought, my mind spinning. Even in a rage, she was supposed to follow the impulses her Emotion imposed. If that happened to be Vengeance, then she should have been rabidly pursuing people who had wronged her, not the only three people who had gone out of their way to help her.

Not the people she considered friends.

Or did she?

I didn't know, and the sheer weight of that thought made me nauseous. I felt myself sinking as a familiar chorus rang dismally through my mind:

What if she doesn't think of me as a friend? What if she never liked me to begin with? Why did I even think she might? There's nothing about me that's worth such affection. Nothing that would justify friendship. I'm —

"Hayden! Snap out of it and help me!" Glaustro growled, his voice strained with effort. Mia was doing a remarkable job of trying to escape. Every second, more and more rock rose up to hold the cat girl down, but her physical strength allowed her to keep her arms free. She kept slamming her hands down on the rock cocoon, cracking it with every blow.

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I forced myself to take a step closer to my thrashing friend, shedding the depressing thoughts as my own Emotion writhed under my skin. It wasn't Woe that had put those thoughts into my head, however. Ever since I'd accepted it fully, it had curled up inside of me like a kitten content to sleep.

Still, there was a reason I ended up with it. The doubts that had lurked underneath the surface of my mind for so long were still there, and I was unpleasantly surprised to find that I was as prone to them as I used to be.

What was the point of ascending to a higher level of existence if I remained the same mess as I always was?

That doesn't matter. Mia matters. You need to help her. But… how?

"What are we supposed to do? How long does this kind of thing last, usually?" I demanded the answers in a hurry when my Abyss-granted knowledge failed to provide them.

"It depends," Bronwynn hedged. As he stepped forward and spread his arms wide, a spell matrix began to form in front of him. "It could peter out soon, or… well, it can last much longer."

"Define 'much longer'," I ground out through gritted teeth, trying to snatch Mia's wrists out of the air and earning several cuts along my forearms for my trouble.

Bronwynn winced. "The longest case of frenzy we have on record lasted a bit over four hundred years."

"A bit over?!" I repeated, eyes wide.

"Well… four hundred and seventy-six years, to be precise."

Before I could make it known exactly how I felt about Mia being reduced to a mindless berserker for that long, Bronwynn's spell finally snapped into place. The matrix seemed to implode. Where it once hovered, a cloud of faintly cyan gas formed and rolled slowly towards Mia.

The demoness's struggles intensified, her mana surging to the point that she almost broke out of her rock cocoon. Then the gas finally enveloped her. I stepped away hurriedly from its spread, but I still caught a wave of reassurance, comfort, and laziness that the spell seemed to impose on the world around it.

Immediately, Mia's movements slackened, and the rock finally managed to close around her arms. Her expression, fierce as it was, gradually started to relax. Even her Emotion began to settle, her aura slowly contracting into a simmer.

"Since when can you do something like that?" I asked in wonder, eying the cyan cloud that still lingered around Mia.

"I've been… practicing, while you were out of it," Bronwynn admitted with obvious discomfort. "It didn't work on you."

"Well, it's a good thing it's working on —"

Mia's Emotion erupted with renewed viciousness, and I wanted to curse myself for my stupid tongue. I had to go and jinx it within seconds of things turning for the better.

Looking at Mia's face, I was startled by what I saw. She seemed to be in genuine pain, features twisting in anguish as she oscillated between calm, terror, and mind-numbing rage. The turmoil finally resolved itself in an ear-bursting shriek of frustration and a wave of mana far more potent than I had ever felt from the cat girl.

It blew apart Glaustro's spell, and Bronwynn's fared no better. Mia's mana shredded both the rock cocoon and the cyan cloud instantly. Then she leaned forward, drawing her claws back for a swipe, and I knew she was going right for my throat again.

That still didn't prepare me for what she did next.

Slowly, as if struggling to push out the word, her lips parted.

"Vengeance!"

The eruption of Emotion that followed nearly blew me off my feet. Vengeance was suddenly everywhere, trying to worm its way into everyone. I heard more than a few onlookers scream. They had gathered a short distance away to watch the fun, but now their cries devolved into animalistic screeching. Find more to read at novelbuddy

Bronwynn staggered in place, eyes wide and startled as he clutched at his chest. I could see his soul struggle under the assault, his defenses failing by the second. The only one who seemed relatively unaffected was Glaustro, but even he stumbled for a moment.

I, meanwhile, found myself frozen, the connection between my mind and body briefly severed. My soul filled with the images of every injustice I had ever suffered, even if Mia's Emotion failed to draw forth the primal desire to extract retribution. At the same time, my instincts screamed at me to move, to do something, as her claws drew ever closer.

With death drawing near and my mind churning with doubt, I did the only thing I could. I sank into my own Emotion, letting it subsume all else.

A wave of Woe slammed out into the world, and it was Mia's turn to stagger.

"Woe… unto… me…"

The words tore out of me before I could consciously process what I was doing. The curse came naturally. It amplified the Emotion swirling in my chest, causing a wave of anguish to slam into my mind.

Tears slipped from all my eyes of their own accord, sliding down my cheeks and wings. I was weeping azure, and the liquid sizzled wherever it impacted anything that wasn't me.

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In the back of my mind, all my most negative emotions kept roiling, turning in on themselves like a black hole. As the void grew, so did the pressure it exerted. It was building — it was desperate to explode —

"WOE UNTO YOU!"

I threw my head back and screamed the words, pouring all of my misery out into the world and relishing the sensations that followed. Some newfound part of me found nothing but sick satisfaction as I forcefully pumped every soul within reach full of every worst thought I'd ever had, every dark, cloying emotion.

I wanted them to feel it all. I wanted them to suffer as I did. I wanted —

A punch snapped my head to the side, and sanity reasserted itself rather forcefully.

"Don't you dare go off the rails too," Glaustro demanded, pointing with a shaky finger. "Look at what you're doing!"

I looked, and immediately felt like collapsing in on myself. Bronwynn was on the ground, weeping. The demons that had been affected by Mia before were gibbering in anguish. Some were clawing at their own bodies. Some were shaking, curled up into balls. Others were all but comatose, their eyes hopeless and vacant.

Even Glaustro, functional though he was, had tears streaming down his cheeks.

"I did that?" I whispered, yet needed no confirmation. I could feel it, after all. Woe had forced its way into each and every one of them, all on my command.

"I swear, the two of you will be the death of me," the older demon snarled, brushing his face off roughly as he glared at me.

The two of us…

I immediately turned to check on Mia. The newly minted demoness was on her knees, but she looked more shaken and distraught than overcome with Woe.

Instantly, I was there next to her, my hands reaching out hesitantly. She startled at my approach, but then recognition dawned. This time, there was no overwhelming desire for my blood shining back at me from those black and gold orbs.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I —"

I hugged her, cutting off whatever she wanted to say next. She froze up for a moment. Then shaking hands closed around me in turn, and I felt a growing wet patch on my shoulder where she buried her face.

Glaustro cursed again behind me, but at this point, I knew him well enough to recognize when he was cursing out of relief rather than frustration or anger.

"Sure," he snarked. "Go ahead and just collapse there. Make a mess and then leave me in charge of getting us out."

The stone beneath us rumbled. A second later, it formed into a platform and raised us into the air. I looked over just in time to see Glaustro lift Bronwynn up with startling gentleness. Then the sergeant was beating a hasty retreat from the station, Bronwynn in his arms and our platform floating after him.

My only reply was a bitter smile. Let him gripe. He didn't really need my help, and I wasn't about to move.

I had Mia back. In that moment, nothing could convince me to let her go.