Sion Note 1

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Memories.

“……”

His memories were returning.

At first, it was his friends’ faces. The smiling faces of his comrades who should’ve already died filled his mind. Tony, Tyle, and Fahle’s faces. The faces of his acquaintances, of people who he passed every now and then, and the faces of old friends.

At first, they were all laughing. Now they were silent. Because they were dead.

Each and every one of them was dead.

Was it because they’d met him? Or was it because the world was rotten?

Either way, they’d never say another word.

---

Next, he saw his mother’s face.

He wasn’t trying to see her. Her image aimlessly, but strongly, entered his mind.

She’d always looked so tired. Even so, when her eyes met his, she smiled without fail. She’d been such a beautiful person. She always laughed with that sad but kind expression on her face. But she too was dead. She’d never speak again. 

The memories kept coming.

They spun in his mind, from bright and shining scenes to dark and depressing ones. From memories that put him in a good mood to memories that he didn’t want to remember at all. They went further and further back into the past, as if climbing up a river. It was like he was turning the page backwards to reach the beginning of a story, but kept turning even after he reached the first page, giving birth to a new scene entirely.

No… not new.

Old memories.

They were old memories.

They were old, old old old old—

“……”

Sion Astal grimaced.

His silver hair lended him a noble aura, and his golden eyes were filled with a strong resolve.

He was pressing a hand to his chest. It hurt. It hurt like his organs were trying to break free through his mouth.

His head hurt. He was dizzy. His whole body was tormenting him. He was filled with disgust. 

He stood, alone, bearing the curse that now flowed throughout his body.

He was currently inside of a small, cramped room below the Eris manor. It lied beyond many, many doors. This was the heart of the Roland Empire, a place that existed past countless warped dimensions. 

And there he was, in the heart of darkness.

A broken hero had once been sealed there.

A hero, and a demon, had been sealed there.

But they were gone now. Because Sion had taken the hero’s body.

He had taken the Dark Fallen Hero Aslude Roland and devoured him entirely, making his body into Sion’s own. That was why everything inside of him hurt. Why his organs felt as though they’d explode. Why his blood was boiling. Why everything hurt, leaving him to long for a swift death.

It was the curse. The hero’s curse was ruining him. But he didn’t scream. He didn’t say anything at all. All he did was narrow his golden eyes within the dark room.

“……”

He heard a voice from behind. 

“…Hey. You’re here again?”

It was the clear voice of a man. Of Lucile Eris.

Sion didn’t turn around. Even if he did, he wouldn’t see a thing.

Because Lucile was a victim of Roland’s darkness.

He had devoured the demon. Devoured it for his little sister’s sake.

As a result, he held no real body. He was no longer human.

That was why Sion didn’t turn to look at him, even as he spoke. “Here to get in my way?”

Lucile laughed. “Not particularly. It’s just, this place is already…”

“Yeah. The hero isn’t here anymore.”

“So why did you come?”

“Because this is the closest place to darkness,” Sion said.

“……”

“No, the pain isn’t as bad… when I come here. The monster inside of me…”

“Calms down a little?”

“Yeah. So I escape here every now and then.”

“Is it hard?” Lucile asked.

Sion laughed. “Isn’t that obvious? Of course it’s hard.”

Lucile appeared.

Here, within the darkness, the head of the Eris family - Lucile Eris - appeared. He was an eerily beautiful man. He had blond hair and porcelain skin. His eyes were closed. They always were. But he could see all of Roland through those closed eyes.

“Are you watching your sister again today?” Sion asked as he gazed at Lucile.

“I only ever watch you. I watch you, this country’s king—”

“To evaluate me?”

“Yes…. To see that you don’t lose to the pain.” Lucile reached out to touch Sion’s cheek. His hand was terribly cold. So cold that he could almost laugh.

Lucile had stopped being human, then Sion took a step into the darkness, too. He had seen the pain and despair that awaited him, but he himself had still made the choice to take another step.

They were both observing each other. Holding the other accountable. Ensuring that the other would not lose to or run from the pain as their insides ceased to be human, little by little. 

Sion could almost laugh at how stupid it all was. He brushed Lucile’s hand away. “I won’t lose,” he said. “If I was going to lose here, then…”

“…Then you never would have done business with me?”

“Yeah,” Sion said with a nod. He looked to the darkness past Lucile. To the boundless darkness that extended far, far beyond what he could see. It covered everything in this country—no, this world. It was so strong that it felt like it’d swallow it up if he just stared into its depths. 

Lucile turned to look at it, too. He didn’t say anything. He just stared for a moment, then disappeared. He didn’t have a real body, after all. He had no ‘true form,’ and now his heart was slowly dissolving, too.

He’d devoured a monster, and because of it, he was losing his human-like senses and consciousness. He was resisting it with all he had.

It wasn’t just Lucile, either. Sion was fighting it, too; his self that deviated from his own humanity. He was fighting his weak self that struggled to bear the seething pain of the curse.

“……”

He stared into the darkness. Into its depths. 

The scenery seemed to change. It felt like it was going faster than before. It spun and bounced around to a dizzying degree. 

Memories unlike what a human might have came one after another.

Ferris’ face came to him. Lucile’s sister. His beautiful sister, who he did everything he could to protect. Lucile had tried to spin destiny’s gears to a path that didn’t involve her. That was the single reason why he offered up his life. Sion had no idea if what he set out to do was successful.

Her face, expressionless as it was, disappeared as quickly as it came. 

Next, he saw the face of his close friend: Ryner. The face of the man who forgave everything with his whole heart. 

Ryner’s face warped and disappeared.

The pages were turning backwards, one after another, faster than he could count.

They spun and spun in the darkness until they reached the end—a memory that was not his own. It was the memory of something e l s e. 

And the scene those memories showed— 

“……”

Sion shook his head. Looking at those memories wasn’t a good idea.

They were, in all likelihood, the memories of the fallen hero Aslude Roland. He still lacked the power to look through them. If he tried, it was possible that the mad hero’s consciousness would invade his mind. It wasn’t as though he’d devoured him whole, after all. So he stopped himself from tracing the edge of those memories.

He turned away. It was dark no matter where he looked, but he turned away from the heart of the darkness and took a step forward. It only took a few steps for him to feel it lessen. 

Reality returned to him, free of the darkness packed with curses. Before long, he was in something that almost felt like a normal dojo. 

It was a large dojo made from wood. It belonged to the Eris family.

Sion opened the closed doors, then looked out at the garden that surrounded the dojo. Though the Eris family was noble, their garden was far simpler than what one might see other noble kids playing in.

It had a small pond surrounded by unassuming stones. The oldest daughter of the Eris family was on one such stone, staring into the water.

Her name was Ferris Eris.

She had long and beautiful golden hair, and a perfect face not unlike Lucile’s. Her face didn’t betray her emotions, but even so, she was clearly human in a way that Lucile wasn’t. She had human warmth.

Sion smiled at her reassuring humanity. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He’d returned to reality.

Ferris didn’t take her eyes off of the water. She just stood there, arms folded, as if waiting. “Did you find it, Iris?”

A splash in the middle of the pond revealed a miniature Ferris known as Iris. She jumped out like a fish. She was just as pretty as her siblings, but her blue eyes were far more expressive than theirs. She was sopping wet, her blonde hair stuck to her pale limbs.

She looked up at Ferris. “Sister, it’s not heeere!” Iris yelled back. Her voice was full of color. When compared to her siblings, Lucile and Ferris, she was without a doubt the one with the most humanity left.

“Then keep looking,” Ferris answered. “You’re incompetent until you find it.”

“I don’t wanna be incompetent!”

“Then search.”

“Okay!” Iris said and dived back into the pond.

Ferris watched her wordlessly. She only turned away and towards Sion when he approached.

“Hm. Sion. So you came.”

He nodded. “I had some business with Lucile.”

“With my brother?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you’ve already finished your business?”

“I have.”

“Then have you come to dive as well?” Ferris asked as she pointed towards the pond.

“What exactly are you two doing here?” Sion asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Three years ago to this day, I had a wonderful thought.”

“Okay.”

“You are aware of the way that dango is skewered, correct?”

“Yeah, I know that dango can be skewered.”

“And that skewer is left over after you’ve eaten the dango.”

“Alright.”

“Thirty thousand skewers could make a boat. I’d planned to do so myself.”

“Huh.”

“So I did it.”

“Wait, so that means that you’ve collected thirty thousand skewers?” Sion asked, surprised.

Ferris nodded without comment.

Meanwhile, Sion was running the numbers in his head. “And you thought about that three years ago, right?”

She nodded again. “That’s right.”

“So that means that you’ve eaten over twenty skewers of dango a day for the past three years?”

She stared at him for a moment, her eyes lacking all but the slightest sign of emotion. “That’s what it amounts to?”

“Umm, yeah, if you ate thirty thousand in three years, then that means that you probably ate approximately twenty-seven or twenty-eight skewers of dango daily, I think?”

“Hm. That’s surprisingly few.”

“No, no. I think that’s too much—”

Ferris cut him off with a finger pointed in his direction. “No! A true dango master would eat upwards of one hundred daily!” she yelled.

Sion stared at her accusative finger, tired. “Sounds like you feel pretty strongly about it.”

Ferris nodded. She looked ever-so-slightly happy. “Do you want to say it too?”

“No, it’s okay. I’m actually not feeling my best. Sleep deprivation and all.”

“Work again? Your body will be destroyed if you continue to overwork it. You must quit your job and eat dango all day instead. Dango, I say.”

Sion laughed. “What kind of person would that make me?”

Ferris looked back down at the pond. “A dango master.”

“Haha. But eating too much dango will destroy your body too. You could suddenly faint, and I’d have to rush you to a hospital…”

“That wouldn’t be the dango’s fault.”

“But you’d be upset if you made Ryner worry, wouldn’t you?”

“Ugh…”

“If you pace yourself and eat a balanced diet, then the doctor won’t say anything at all.”

“…That aside!”

“No, not aside.”

“Iris and I have spent the past two days building a boat out of dango skewers. However.”

Sion looked back towards the pond, where one would think that Iris had disappeared due to her lack of presence. But she was swimming around underwater frantically, and had been for the past three minutes or so that Sion and Ferris had been talking. Her moving dress was the only real sign of life. She hadn’t come up for air even once.

“Um, Ferris, I’m getting kind of worried about her going so long without breathing…”

“To think that my masterpiece of the past two days could be destroyed the instant it touched water.”

Sion finally got the full picture of what was currently happening. Sure enough, when he looked around he noticed a mountain of damp skewers.

He had to ask. “By the way, about how many skewers have you recovered?”

“Twenty-nine thousand nine hundred eighty-two.”

Basically, there were eighteen unaccounted for skewers resting inside of that pond. He looked back down at it. Down at the little rocks and sand that Iris was desperately searching.

“Okay,” Sion said. “So what will you do when you’ve found the rest of them?”

“Use a stronger adhesive to create a more durable boat!”

“Uh-huh. Well, I’m glad that you guys are always having such good fun.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Then will you dive in?”

Sion shook his head, flustered. “No, my work isn’t done yet. I’m going back to the castle now.”

“I see. Then tell Ryner.”

“Huh?”

“Tell him that he needs to come here. The boat will soon be complete.”

“Haha, okay,” Sion said with a nod.

Ferris nodded back.

Just then, Iris raised her head from the water, making a loud splash as she did. “Not here, Sister!”

“Hm. It can’t be helped,” Ferris said. She took her sword from her waist and set it on the ground beside her. “I will join you.” With that, she jumped into the pond.

“Kyah!” Iris screamed happily. But halfway through her scream, Ferris’ food slammed into her face, turning her ‘kyah’ into a ‘gyah.’

They looked like they were having a blast swimming around like that. Sion just watched.

“…Looks fun, doesn’t it?” Sion whispered. “Lucile, are you really okay? You don’t want to join them?”

“……”

There obviously wasn’t a reply. But Sion laughed anyway.

He turned his back to the girls and walked away. Away from the Eris family.

He walked away from the depths of Roland’s darkness and back towards the castle.

---

His office was quiet.

It was an unbelievably modest room, considering that it was the office belonging to the king of all Roland, situated within his quarters in the castle.

The room was, in its entirety, bookshelves and two desks. At one of the desks was a lone man, dead asleep.

Ryner Lute.

He had the same problem with his hair always being messy from sleep as he did when they first met, and his long limbs were spread out all over the desk where he’d passed out. Drool was dripping from his mouth and onto the thirty-some stacks of documents that he was unceremoniously making a mess of.

“Hey,” Sion tried.

“……”

“Hey, Ryner.”

“……”

“Can you hear my voice?” Sion tried again, but there was no answer.

Sion smiled, then sighed. He then went to his own desk and sat down. It was covered in piles of papers that nearly reached the ceiling. Before he left his office, only about half of this was here.  It appeared that his work had increased while he was gone.

On his left were the papers he still had to deal with, and on his right were typically the documents he’d already finished looking over and attending to. But it seemed that one of his subordinates had already taken that pile away. So right now, everything on his desk still had to be dealt with.

He reached an arm out to touch the top of the mountain of papers from where he sat. The top of the pile was the start of what he should finish today, but realistically, it’d probably take him three days of sleepless, nonstop work to take care of everything here. Speaking of which, this was already day two of no sleep. Ryner, too. So Sion completely understood why he wanted to lay there on his desk and sleep so deeply that he was drooling on his desk.

Sion watched Ryner for a while, then looked up at his mountain of papers. Finishing them today was clearly impossible. He sighed, then took a deep breath. “Hey, Ryner,” he said again. “No sleeping! This amount of work is impossible for me. Wake uuup!”

Unsurprisingly, there was no reply. Ryner was exhausted, too.

Ever since Ryner had come here to help Sion out, even his work had become exciting. Ryner was helping as much as he could, even though he usually only ever complained about how tired he was.

Even things that Sion couldn’t possibly do alone became manageable with Ryner by his side. And he even went so far as to worry about Sion.

“……”

Sion watched Ryner as he slept and wondered if there wasn’t something he could do to thank him for everything. How could he convey how much Ryner had helped by coming back for him?

With that in mind, Sion picked the ink bottle on his desk up and took the cap off. He threw it at Ryner as hard as he could.

“Ow, that hurt!” Ryner yelled. He lifted his head, and when he did, the ink got all over his face. “The hell!?”

Sion smiled. “Weell, I was just thinking that I ought to do something to thank you for always helping me out with my work!”

“How is any part of this thanking me!?” Ryner said, angry, as he covered the top of the bottle of ink to keep the situation from getting any worse.

“It’s my thanks to you for leaving me alone with all these papers while you sleep~!”

“As if you aren’t the one who left me to go take a damn walk!”

“But I came back,” Sion argued.

“Who cares!”

“I’m here now!”

“Who caaaresss!! Seriously! I’m seriously begging you here! I’ve been helping you nonstop! I haven’t even slept in two whole days! C’mon…”

“And I’ll be counting on you for another three—”

“Don’t fuck with meeee!” Ryner yelled before Sion could finish. 

Of course he understood how Ryner felt. He understood painfully well. Even so, the devil in his heart spoke through him as he pointed at the pile of papers to his left. “But there’s just so much left to do.”

Ryner looked up at the pile of paperwork. He could hardly keep his eyes open. Then he threw the bottle of ink back. Not at Sion, but at his papers.

It was a direct hit.

Sion vacantly watched his mountain crash down in a landslide. “Looks like picking all of that up is going to be a lot of work,” he mumbled.

“See! See!? You’re so tired that you’re not even mad that your papers are all over the floor! It’s impossible. Super impossible! Let’s sleep, okay? Going even longer without sleep is just stupid. Look, you know that I hate work. I turn to ash as soon as I even hear the word. So what the hell have I been doing pulling all-nighters just to help you work!? I’m gonna end you!”

“It looks like your power nap helped you get your energy back, though?”

“It did not.”

“Okay, so let’s do just a little more work—”

“I will not. I will be going home now,” Ryner said and stood up rather dramatically. Then he met Sion’s eyes. “You too,” he said. “Go home and sleep.”

Sion shrugged. “Where exactly is my home?”

“Dunno.”

“And where’s yours?”

“Wherever you’re not.”

Sion laughed. He entrusted his back to the chair and tried to relax there.

Neither of them had anything like a ‘home.’ They didn’t even have a family. They were all dead. After all, in the old rotten Roland, lives were cheap, and their friends and family were spent with ease.

They lived huddled together and did their damn best to live in order to make their country a better place, even if only a little. Those who thought the same way as them did their best to decrease casualties, even if only a little. They couldn’t return to the past, but they wanted to brighten their future, even if only a little.

“…Then I’ll just work a little more,” Sion mumbled and moved his hands to pick a nearby document up. But that alone was enough for vertigo to assault him. It was the same dizziness as always—that which arose from the Hero who he took in, battling in the depths of his eyes.

Someone else’s strange memories spun around in his head. They were dark memories; memories that belonged to a monster.

That monster’s memories were reviving inside of him. It was as though the monster was trying to hijack his body - it held him in place, and injected memories of a place he couldn’t understand into his mind alongside a searing pain.

A moon climbed to the top of the wasteland. Other than that, it was filled with a terrible darkness. That and nothing else.

“……”

He felt as though he could hear a voice calling out to him from afar. Like someone had tried to say something. But he couldn’t make it out.

“…on…”

He felt as though someone far away was calling his name. But he didn’t have the strength to reply.

All he could do was just… in the darkness, he—

“Hey! Sion! Are you okay!?” someone shouted in his ear.

That voice brought him back. He raised his head. Ryner was standing by his side.

It wasn’t dark. There was no wasteland.

It was just… his buddy, close by his side, looking down at Sion with a concerned expression. On top of that, he’d been gripping Sion’s shoulders to confirm that he was conscious.

Sion looked at the hand on his shoulder and laughed. Smiled. Kindly, happily… at least, that was how he tried to look. He showed Ryner that smile as he did his best to push the pain back inside of himself. “Ahh, I fell asleep. I guess I’m tired too. Going without sleep like this isn’t good. My consciousness flew off somewhere.”

Ryner was obviously angry with him. “What do you mean, it flew off somewhere…? Geez… work is seriously off limits today, okay? You’ll actually die if you keep going like this, you know!”

Sion nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ll spend some time reflecting.”

“Oh, it’s rare for you to be so docile.”

“I’m always docile, though?”

“Give it up.”

Sion gave it up. Since Ryner was so tired of it and all. He looked back down to the documents before him and picked one up with a smile. “Okay, let me finish this real quick so I can take a power nap—”

“You didn’t reflect at all!” Ryner said and smacked him in the head.

Sion rubbed the spot Ryner hit as he looked up at him. “Are you trying to hurt me?”

“That’s why I hit you. And if you’re still not gonna sleep, then I’ll make you faint next!”

Sion laughed. Because Ryner was just so…

“……”

So stupidly kind… that it made him laugh. He laughed, but he wanted to cry.

“I get it,” Sion said. “I’ll sleep a little.” He stood up and motioned to the room by his office that was already prepared and ready for him to sleep. “Why don’t you accompany me—”

“Die.”

“Ahaha.”

“Seriously, stop with the dumb shit and just sleep. I’m going back to the inn and sleeping too.”

“Okay,” Sion said and waved his goodbye. “Then I’ll see you in two hours—”

Ryner nodded and began to shuffle out. “Alright, see you in two hundred hours.”

“That’s over ten days.”

“I never wanna come back here.”

“But you will, right?”

Ryner shrugged as he walked out of the room.

Sion stared at the door that Ryner left from, then shrugged and started back towards his desk.

“……”

Stop. 

He hit himself in the same spot that Ryner had smacked hard to snap himself out of it, smiled bitterly to himself, then changed course to his napping room. Laid down in the bed.

But the pain wouldn’t leave him even if he slept.

The searing pain that coursed through his body would never leave. Not for all eternity. But he’d known that since the beginning. He’d known it back when he made a contract with Lucile to take the Hero within himself. 

If he closed his eyes, those memories would surely circle him. That monster’s memories would surround him.

They’d assault him, violate him, desecrate him, rage inside of him.

“……”

Sion closed his eyes. But sleep would not come to him.

He was assaulted by pain, by despair, and visions of the darkness from before.

That desolate wasteland was beneath a moon. But it was so dark.

The darkness stretched out, as if aiming to destroy the world from the inside out—

There, a small animal-like demon lived.

It stood alone, deep within that world of solitude. It stared at him as though sad.

He watched the beautiful demon.

It stood with its back to the moon, fixing its fond gaze on Sion as it looked up at him. 

He called its name. The name of the demon before his eyes.

“Ryner.”

And the demon responded.

It responded happily, lovingly, as if it enjoyed this, though sadly—“Ah, ah… right. So you’d call my name for my sake. Sion.”

He saw that memory, and then it all began to fall apart.

---

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