Markus and Iris continued making their way through the Black Ocean, the lantern in Markus’s hand and the flaming lance in Iris’s providing just enough light to navigate the crimson bridges.
Unfortunately, neither of them knew where they were going.
Every path seemed to lead into another, and the towering structures surrounding them made it almost impossible to tell whether they were making progress or simply wandering in circles.
Iris had been too terrified as a child to memorize the layout of this place during her previous life.
Not that she’d ever imagined she’d have to return to this hell.
She bit down on her nail as she considered their options.
‘The core of a Devil’s Footprint is always a tangible object rather than a monster.
We just need to find it and destroy it before morning.’
That was easier said than done.
During the original timeline, she’d been accompanied by both Markus and Wallace, and even with the two of them working together, it had taken four hours to locate the core.
Four hours that had felt like an eternity to the terrified sixteen-year-old she’d once been.
And by the time they’d escaped, her mother had already died.
Iris glanced down at her trembling hand.
‘Damn it.
What if we don’t find her in time?
What if she’s already—’
“Hey. You okay?”
Iris looked up.
Markus had slowed his pace, watching her with an awkward expression.
“Look, I’ve never been particularly good at comforting people,” he admitted, scratching the back of his head.
“But all we can really do right now is believe they’re still alive and keep looking. Standing around worrying isn’t going to help us find them any faster.”
Iris stared at him for a moment before letting out a quiet sigh.
‘That stupid optimism of yours.’
Markus had never been good with words.
Even in her previous life, his attempts to comfort people had usually amounted to telling them to stop crying and do something about whatever was upsetting them.
Yet somehow, she always found his clumsy reassurance calming.
‘I still don’t understand how you manage it, even when you’re this awful at cheering people up.’
Her expression softened slightly before another memory surfaced.
‘Alice…’
Iris had cried for weeks after what happened to her.
Markus had been the one who executed Alice, but Iris knew the circumstances surrounding that tragedy were far more complicated than simply blaming him.
Understanding that hadn’t made the grief hurt any less.
‘I’ll change your fate this time, too.’
She tightened her grip around her lance.
‘Though out of everyone I want to save, you’re probably going to be the most difficult.
Even harder than saving Mom.’
Markus glanced at her again, apparently deciding that silence wasn’t helping.
“You know, it’s been a pretty rough month for us, too.”
Iris raised an eyebrow.
“For you and Wallace?”
“Yeah.” Markus sighed, shifting the lantern to his other hand.
“We got assigned to hunt down a criminal organization. Real pain in the ass, that one. Just the two of us against, what, a hundred gang members?”
Iris stared at him.
‘Ah.
So we’re doing small talk now.’
“How’d it go? Did you beat up all the bad guys?” Iris asked, already knowing exactly which organization Markus was talking about.
“More or less. It was a pretty rough job, though.” Markus adjusted the lantern in his hand.
“The group called themselves the Red Lotus Society. Small-time compared to the threats A.E.G.I.S usually deals with in the States, but that didn’t make them any less disgusting. Bunch of Cursebearers using their powers to push drugs and traffic civilians.” He glanced at her.
“Just so you know, once you join us, you’ll have to deal with all kinds of monsters. Not just supernatural ones, either. Plenty of ordinary humans manage to be just as vile.”
“Right. So what happened when you found them?”
“The leaders refused to surrender. Wallace ended up shooting them both.”
Iris’s fingers tightened around her lance.
“Honestly, they would’ve been executed by A.E.G.I.S anyway, or locked up in Area 51 for the rest of their lives,” Markus continued.
His expression grew less cheerful.
“Still, I feel bad for their kid. He was right there when it happened. About your age, actually. Had to watch both his parents get shot in the head.”
Iris bit down on her nail.
‘Yeah.
Just as I remember.’
Charles Wells.
Wallace had killed his parents, and afterward, A.E.G.I.S had taken Charles in.
His Curse had already awakened, and the boy possessed an extraordinary talent for using it.
The organization had gained a promising young agent from the incident.
Iris had eventually gained someone she loved.
‘I wonder what you’d think if I told you that kid’s going to become one of the most important people in my life.’
She kept the thought to herself.
There were far too many things she couldn’t explain to Markus, and this was one of the few memories she wanted to hold on to without turning it into another discussion about fate.
“You know,” Markus said, interrupting her thoughts, “you actually remind me of him.”
Iris looked up.
“…I do?”
“Sure. You’re both prodigies when it comes to using your Curses.” Markus gave her a sideways glance.
“And, well, to put it bluntly, based on the file I read about you, you’re both impulsive, have terrible anger issues, and solve an awful lot of problems with violence.”
Iris’s eye twitched.
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, today was literally your first day of school, and you already got into a fight.”
“That bastard deserved it.”
“See? Exactly what I mean.”
“Shut up.”
Iris looked away, trying to appear annoyed.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t quite stop herself from smiling.
“Hey, Markus. That creepy vampire said a lot of weird things, but there was one thing in particular that bothered me.” Iris glanced toward the darkness beyond the bridge.
“He said he was trying to awaken a demon somewhere in the Black Ocean. One of the Seven Sins. The Devil of Greed, Avaritia.”
Markus stopped walking.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then his grip tightened around the lantern.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
“Not again. Not another one of those damned Sins.”
Iris watched his expression change.
The usual grin had disappeared, replaced by something far more serious.
“What happened last time?”
Markus let out a long sigh before answering.
“Eight years ago, the Devil of Envy appeared in Europe. Invidia. A.E.G.I.S sent two hundred agents to deal with that monster.” He paused.
“One hundred and seventy-four of them died.”
Iris felt her stomach tighten.
“I wasn’t part of the raid,” Markus continued.
“Wallace was, though. So was a friend of mine named Maria. Most of A.E.G.I.S’s main council went too.” His voice grew quieter.
“We lost the majority of the council that day. And Maria.”
‘Eight years ago.’
Her father had died eight years ago.
Michello had also experienced a tragedy during that same year, and now Markus was telling her about the massacre caused by Invidia.
‘And if Nikolai really is one of the Nine Miracles like I suspect he could be, that makes three of us whose lives were shaped by tragedies in the same year.’
She frowned.
‘How much of this is connected?’
She’d spent twenty years believing the worst events of her life were separate disasters, each one caused by a different monster or circumstance.
But now that she was retracing the past, the same people, the same names, and the same dates kept appearing.
‘What the hell happened eight years ago?’
“If Avaritia really is going to awaken here, we need to find the core and get everyone out as quickly as possible,” Markus said.
“I’m not letting another one of those bastards turn this into a slaughter.”
Iris nodded, but before she could respond, Markus’s ear twitched.
His expression changed.
“Iris. Behind me.”
He ripped a lock of hair from his head and threw it into the air.
Space twisted around it, forming a barrier just as a barrage of enormous black blades descended from above.
BOOM!
The blades struck the barrier with enough force to shake the bridge beneath their feet.
Iris stumbled backward, staring at the objects lodged against the distorted space.
They resembled feathers, except each one was as long and sharp as a sword.
‘Feathers?’
She looked up.
Someone stood above them.
At first glance, he resembled an angel.
A young boy who looked no older than Iris, with long black hair and glowing orange eyes.
Expensive jewelry adorned his body, from golden bracelets to an elaborate headband and numerous other priceless pieces.
Two small demonic horns protruded from his head, while enormous black wings stretched out behind him, almost blending into the darkness of the Black Ocean.
Iris froze.
The moment their eyes met, nausea surged through her.
She clapped a hand over her mouth as her legs began to tremble.
‘No…’
She recognized that feeling.
It was the suffocating presence of one of the Seven Sins.
Her current body wasn’t ready to withstand it.
She might have regained her Curse, but she was still sixteen, and no amount of experience could make her body endure power it wasn’t prepared for.
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Markus looked up at the winged boy, then immediately turned toward Iris.
“We need to run.”
“W-wait, my—”
Markus scooped her up before she could finish.
Iris’s flaming lance slipped from her hand and struck the bridge, its light flickering as Markus launched himself forward.
“Markus, my spear!”
“Forget the damn spear!”
Another wave of black feathers descended from the sky.
Markus ran.
Behind them, the blades tore into the crimson bridge, shattering the stone where they’d been standing only moments before.
Iris clutched his shoulder and looked back at the figure watching them from above.
‘Of all the fucking times for one of you to show up…’
The boy’s enormous black wings spread wider.
And the rain of feathers continued.