Chapter 13: Chapter 12: Imitation

Eris now stood in full possession of Deimos’ body, wearing his face like a mockery.

“Thanks for draining nearly all the Arkhaic energy out of his Core, foolish sister,” she sneered. “Now neither of you can take control of this vessel!” Her laughter echoed across the broken rooftop.

“Uhm… not to ruin your dramatic monologue, Tarot of the Sun, or whatever…” Remus muttered, squinting. “What the hell are you even talking about?”

“Hm?” Eris turned, one brow raised.

She spotted him standing behind her, arms crossed.

A grin slid across her face. “Wait a minute—you’re that bratty prince from before.”

“Bratty?” Remus echoed flatly.

“Yeah! Thanks to you, I managed to take control of him temporarily the last time,” she said, tapping her temple.

“Sorry for attacking you, by the way. I didn’t have full control back then. That idiot’s instincts managed to override me.” She chuckled.

“But here you are again. Helping me out. What a good kid.” She raised a hand, palm open for a high five. “Good job!”

Remus slapped her across the face. Hard.

“If you weren’t a Tarot,” he said, voice cold, “I’d have spat on you for such insolence.”

Eris stood still, head turned from the impact.

Remus didn’t wait for her to respond. “Then again, you’re not really a Tarot, are you? Just something foul wearing his skin.”

He extended his hand. Shadows swirled at his side, forming into the shape of Midnight. The small spectral dog snarled, baring spectral fangs.

“The Tarot of the Sun is compromised. His Core is fouled with spoiled Arkhaic energy.”

Midnight transformed, twisting into the shape of a jagged, crooked blade formed of living shadow.

“For the safety of the kingdom, I’ll end this here.”

Eris’ expression didn’t shift—she only smiled. “Let’s see you try.”

Her hand lifted. Magenta light sparked in her palm—chaotic lightning, mutated from the pure white flame Deimos once wielded. No longer light, no longer order. Now raw instability.

Bolts of pink thunder erupted from her hand, lighting the sky with spirals of violet plasma. Midnight flared outward, wrapping Remus in a cloak of writhing dark.

The bolts struck. The rooftop cracked. Tiles melted. Lightning refracted wildly—but Remus stood his ground, unshaken.

Eris laughed—until her energy sputtered.

The lightning died, reduced to faint sparks and wisps of smoke.

“What the—”

Remus slammed his fist into her face, sending her skidding backward across the stone.

“Usually when someone says something like that, they have more to back it up.” He cracked his knuckles. “Your attacks are pathetic.”

Eris groaned, staring at her palm. “Ah… right. The Tarot’s energy was nearly depleted. That was probably the last of it.”

She stood, brushing debris from her clothes.

“No matter,” she muttered. Unlike Eirene—or that vessel—I don’t need Arkhaios energy to function.

A grin returned to her lips as she charged at Remus.

As long as my seed continues to grow inside his Soul Core, I can act freely. I just have to match his Soul’s Polarity, otherwise nothing I send out will work.

She swung at Remus, but a shadow-forged chain snapped taut around her wrist, yanking her arm back.

Remus didn’t hesitate—his blade came down in a clean arc, severing the restrained limb.

Eris staggered, clutching at the stump, but he was already advancing, forcing her to the ground with his boot and raising the blade to finish it.

The problem is… how do I match a Soul’s Polarity of Preservation?

She rolled to the side just as the sword crashed down, shattering stone where she’d lain. In her scramble, she accidentally left behind a shimmering pink afterimage.

Remus froze at the sight of it, watching as it strained to push against his descending blade.

“What the—” he muttered, forcing the strike through. His sword cleaved into the afterimage’s chest, splitting it before it detonated in a burst of pink sparks.

Eris’ lips curled upward. “Huh. That could work.”

“Enough games,” Remus growled, charging forward again.

The blade came down—but when it struck, Eris wasn’t there. A superimposed afterimage stood in her place, weapon raised in defense. The blow cut through the projection’s sword and into its shoulder, cleaving toward its chest—

—and the world shifted.

Rain hammered down. Blossom trees swayed violently in a sudden gale.

Remus blinked and found himself drenched, his skin sliced open by countless wounds. His muscles burned. Blood ran freely down his arms.

Before him knelt Deimos—not the real one, but another version. One who was already dying.

The alternate Deimos coughed blood, the blade still lodged in his body. Behind him, dozens of royal guards lay dead in pools of rainwater—Amelia, Elizabeth, Birgitta, Elvira, and Kiwi among them.

Remus’ chest tightened.

“I guess Selene was right about you,” the dying Deimos rasped.

Remus’ head whipped toward him.

“I didn’t want to believe it. I held out hope you’d change.” Deimos dropped the shattered blade in his hands. “But she was right. You really are just a monster.”

His eyes went empty.

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“Wha—n-no…” Remus stammered, letting go of the blade. Deimos collapsed onto the soaked ground.

Remus staggered back, breath quickening. Pain wracked his body. He tripped over a corpse and fell to the ground—

—but suddenly he returned back to the rooftop.

He gasped, looking around wildly. The blood. The bodies. Gone. But the pain remained, deep and crippling.

Eris clapped her hands. “Wow, that actually worked!”

“What was that?!” Remus snarled, struggling to rise, his body refusing to obey. “What the hell did you do to me?”

“The Sun Tarot’s Signature lets him manifest alternate versions of himself—ones who’ve won the battles he’s fighting, drawn from other timelines,” Eris said. “All I did was reverse it.”

Her tone was almost casual.

“I took an outcome where he lost to you… and sent you to that timeline instead. You came back with every injury that alternate version of you sustained. Which, judging by how you’re barely able to stand, was quite a lot.”

She spread her arms wide, grinning. “Instead of summoning the variation here, I threw you into its world and let you drag the damage back with you. It keeps his Soul’s Polarity intact—while twisting it into pure chaos, isn’t that amazing?!”

Her laughter cracked across the rooftop like static.

Remus gritted his teeth, forcing himself onto one knee.

Midnight reappeared beside him, whimpering, its spectral form trembling as Eris slowly walked forward, smiling.

She stood before Remus, outstretching the arm that had been cut, regrowing it almost instantly.

She then raised the arm, flattening her hand, ready to decapitate Remus with just that.

Before she could react, a massive fist slammed into her midsection. The impact cracked the air like a gunshot, folding her in half and launching her across the rooftop.

“Well, now what do we—” Eris began, but the words died in her throat. Blood bubbled between her teeth, pattering onto the tiles.

What—?

Her gaze lifted.

Kiwi stood balanced on the roof’s edge, emerald eyes glowing with a cold, steady light.

Without a word, she began to advance. The axe in her hand scraped against the rooftop, steel teeth chewing into the shingles, leaving a smoking trail of sparks.

Remus blinked at the sight, confusion cutting through his pain.

Am I hallucinating? Why is one of our maids holding an axe…?

The thought barely formed before he slumped over, unconscious. Midnight swirled around his body like ink in water, desperately sealing wounds and stanching the bleeding.

“Where is the Sun Tarot?” Kiwi’s voice cracked like a whip.

“And who are you?” Eris asked once more—

But Kiwi vanished mid-stride. The space between them folded like paper, and suddenly she was in front of Eris, axe raised high.

“Arrogant.”

The blade came down with a roar of steel, Eris twisting away at the last instant.

“I know you’re not the Tarot of the Sun,” Kiwi said through gritted teeth. “You’re something different. I can feel it.” She stepped forward again, knuckles popping as she flexed her grip on the axe.

“Give him back his body so I can speak to him—or I knock you out of it.”

Eris smirked, blood running from the corner of her mouth. “Hah. That’s adorable.”

Kiwi’s next strike split the air—

—but bit into nothing. The axe cleaved through an afterimage of Deimos, which flickered and grinned.

“If you want to see him,” Eris said with an unsettling smile, “be my guest.”

The world warped.

Kiwi found herself standing in a dead forest, air still as a held breath. Her axe was buried in this Deimos’ gut, entrails spilling in steaming ropes to the ground.

Yet he smiled—wide, toothless, wrong.

His arm bulged, skin stretching until bone tore through, forming a jagged blade.

With a single swing, he severed her arm at the shoulder.

“G—gah?!” Blood spurted hot across her chest.

“Ouch,” Deimos cooed. “That looked like it hurt… but I guess we’re even now.”

His skull warped, swelling until the skin split. A burst of bone shards exploded outward, slicing her face and arms with needle-fine cuts.

The forest dissolved—

—and she staggered back to the rooftop, knees buckling under her.

“Ah—I was hoping that one would’ve killed you,” Eris said, voice casual despite the fresh blood streaking Kiwi’s face.

Eris turned away. “Sorry, brat, but playtime’s over. I have to go kill Lirael now. Honestly what a shame—her godhood could’ve been useful. Instead, she wastes it by making lesser, false versions of Eirene's creations.”

Her palm opened. Energy swelled in her hand—a pink, swirling cloud that cracked into jagged streaks of lightning. She hurled it. The blast hit like thunder, drowning the roof in smoke.

Eris stepped forward—

—and Kiwi exploded from the haze with a snarl, eyes burning.

“Huh—?” Eris barely moved in time, dodging as the axe scythed for her neck. The blade hit only another afterimage—

—and the world warped again.

Now Kiwi stood in a sterile white laboratory. A white gown hung over her body; her missing arm was replaced with a gleaming cybernetic limb. The wounds on her skin were gone.

Before her, another Deimos—this one wearing a lab coat and goggles—clutched a metal sphere glowing with an angry orange core.

“I gave you everything!” he shouted. “I burned every coin getting resources from the Second Layer—risked people’s lives—to build you that arm, upgrade it to its limits!”

“And this is how you repay me?!” His fingers hovered over the bomb’s trigger.

Kiwi’s gaze dropped to the arm. Her axe was gone. Her lip curled.

“Shut the hell up.”

“What—?”

“You’re not real. Just a copy. I’m not interested in your voice.”

The cybernetic arm shifted with a metallic snarl—two axe blades snapped out from its sides.

“Die.”

She launched forward, cleaving through him before he could react. His head toppled to the floor—

—and the rooftop slammed back into existence.

Kiwi didn’t hesitate. She seized Eris’ vessel by the throat and drove her into the tiles hard enough to crack them.

That afterimage—nothing?! How irritating. Eris’ thoughts barely formed before Kiwi’s axe-arm came down—blocked by another afterimage’s strike.

Kiwi vanished.

An instant later she reappeared in front of Eris, bruised and wearing tattered rags instead of the lab gown. Her arm was flesh again, the axe gone. She pinned Eris before the woman could blink.

“Already?!” Eris spat, just before Kiwi’s fist smashed into her jaw.

“Your illusions don’t work on me anymore.”

Eris formed another afterimage—it lunged. Kiwi’s fist punched straight through its skull, shattering it into pink sparks before it could take shape. She struck Eris again.

The illusion’s death still bled its effects into her—fresh cuts tore open across Kiwi’s skin.

“I am Kiwiana,” she said, driving her fist into Eris’ face once more.

Another afterimage—shattered.

“Tarot of the Seven of Swords.”

She struck again.

“A creation of Lirael.”

Another blow.

“I don’t care who you are or why you wear the Sun Tarot’s form. Even if we have different creators—there’s no difference between him and me.”

Her fist fell harder, the rooftop groaning as a crater spread under them. Eris coughed blood, her eyes going glassy.

“You call me lesser. False.”

Eris kept trying—image after image—but Kiwi’s fists smashed through every one, the impacts rattling the night.

“But there’s truth to my purpose,” Kiwi growled. “We were both made to serve humanity. That makes me just as real as any Tarot. That’s what the Sun Tarot told me.”

How… how is she this strong?! Eris’ mind reeled, her thoughts tumbling as the world spun around her.

Kiwi’s last punch thundered through the rooftop, the tiles splintering beneath them. Eris’ head snapped back, pink eyes stuttering—then dimming to white as the vessel’s eyelids slid shut.

“But you wouldn’t know that,” Kiwi said, her voice low, steady over the sound of her own ragged breathing. “Because you aren’t him. Just a parasite wearing his skin.”

She pushed herself upright, every inch of her body streaked with blood. The emerald haze clinging to her frame pulsed faintly, keeping her on her feet even as her legs trembled and her chest heaved.

“You’re the real imitation.”