Chương 123: CHAPTER 120 - Painted Roses

The entirety of the laboratory was torn open by a multitude of dense, thick bundles of woody lianas. A colossal grayish trunk pierced the entire island, rising toward the upper spheres of floating buildings. The creepers pierced the concrete of one of them, while a girl rested her bloodied leg on the flank. Inside, she could hear the walls being torn apart and what remained of the foundations being crushed. The tip of the blade sparkled at her feet, while drops of blood slid away in the wind.

Her eyes pointed straight ahead, ignoring the branch embedded just above her knee. Her vision blurred, perhaps from languid eyes or perhaps because her mind alternated between euphoria and concentration. Before her, hanging from a branch larger than the ashen trunk, Ed Guin, with an impassive face, observed her.

"Incredible. She managed to bring the fight outside after razing the laboratory to the ground." He lowered his eyes, framing the columns of flames carving the earth and consuming the false vegetation. He closed his hand a couple of times, testing the strength he had left.

"I'm offering you a dignified death. I don't understand why you insist on opposing me." Jeanne didn't move her lips, merely striking the ground a second time with her sword. Ed nodded, snapping his fingers as his clothes grew looser. A swarm of wooden spikes erupted from the trunk, piercing the building. The dust was torn by trembling hands and silver metal. She advanced without looking away, lunging with every slash. In a handful of moments, they found themselves face to face.

Iron and a chitinous limb clashed, cracking the wood behind him.

"What the hell…" Jeanne was repelled, feeling that feverish tremor in her legs spread to her chest.

"Mandibles of the great Eastern beetle, incredibly durable." A grayish trickle rose from the right side of her lips. It exploded like a bullet, aiming at his forehead. The drop exploded behind him, a few centimeters from his temple. Only then did he notice the very thin thread oscillating in the air. Jeanne bit it, pulling hard. Her body spiraled through the air as the thread coiled around the wood. Ed raised his arm, only to be slashed in the abdomen.

Jeanne rewound the thread around her leg, launching herself for a new slash, when she saw that man's pale gaze.

"Has my ability proven more complex than you hoped?" Beneath the torn clothes, plates of dark, glossy brown gleamed under the dull light.

"Unfortunately, I don't like insects." The blade left her hands, impacting against the thick armor. Sparks obscured his face enough to allow Jeanne to propel herself.

"Flames?" The girl grabbed the hilt, bringing the sword wrapped in incandescent paint down. An explosion branched through the trunk, burning the bark and expanding toward the other.

"Even in those conditions, she can display such firepower?" Through the smoke, he continued to swing his arm, parrying the slashes while ash filled the air. With a snap of his fingers, other branches emerged from the trunk's remains, tearing through the smoke. Jeanne managed to stop them with the flat of the blade and a thin patina of sharp metal. The impact launched her against the trunk, making her slide on the wood. The canopy filled her vision with green, while smoke filled Ed's visual space with red and black.

Jeanne touched her abdomen, feeling that detestable burning circulate ever deeper. She bit her lip, transforming the frame. Metallic creaks and the heavy sound of gears filled the air, overpowering the crackling of flames. The whip bound itself around her abdomen and legs, biting into the flesh. Ed raised his insect arm, fortifying it with other layers of chitin. They stared at each other in silence until the air was cut. The whip lacerated her flesh in an instant, spreading her blood along the entire trajectory.

The metal bounced against the dark organic matter, sparkling. Simultaneously, bluish and azure drops spread around him, with a strange crackling." Mengsel!" Lightning and ice spread around Ed, blocking and piercing him while burning bolts tore at his hold. He had no time to grit his teeth before the bloodied woman launched herself at him, carrying the thin, sharp metal over her shoulders like a serpent. Weighed down by the grayish dye, the whip embedded itself in his chest, echoing like wrought iron.

"It ends here and now!" She closed her bloodied knuckles, loading all her weight into her arm. The fist shattered the wood as it violently embedded itself in Ed's face. His fingers were bitten, or rather crushed, by something disturbingly cold.

"They should have given you a decidedly more adequate risk level." Part of Ed's face had grown thinner, replacing the fattest part with multiple forceps and chelicerae, busy dissolving and crushing Jeanne's flesh. A black limb, long and sinuous, erupted from his shoulders, gleaming in its sharpness under the pale sun. He prepared to strike when suddenly the girl, heedless of the pain, kicked him away. The whip bound itself around his waist, tossing him against the tree as it scraped his armor.

"It doesn't matter if it's artificial or not, trees need water…" While she held the whip with her mangled hand, with the other she pierced the ashen wood, reaching the little sap remaining. Her eyes flashed red as that dense sugary pulp began to tinge with various colors.

"Not yet… Don't overlap them, remember what Mr. Clerc said!" For an instant she remembered the cold air of NOIR's training room, the sand in her hair, and the various laughs of the man poking fun at a boy lying in the sand.

"You know, miss, our abilities are similar! You paint, and I make music, if we must be succinct." The pale man turned toward her, resting the tuning fork on his shoulder.

"You're above average in every physical parameter, yet you can't use your power with the same ease with which you wield the brush... and I assure you, you're decidedly good!" The man smiled as Jeanne blushed, trying to shield herself with the sand left on her damp face.

"Be inspired slowly, a little at a time. You don't have to do something incredible right away. You just need to lay many solid foundations in succession." In that moment, those words echoed in her mind with new meaning. The sap first turned bluish, freezing the trunk and piercing Ed with azure spikes. Then it tinged red, exploding tongues of flame from beneath the wood, turning the tree into a burning brand.

Scars began to carve into her flesh, but she didn't care as long as she could torment that tree and its creator with a thousand shapes and colors.

"Another! Roest!" Black, dense smoke emerged from the cracks, accompanied by numerous screams and moans. The organic matter began to melt, liquefying into a dark, granular pulp.

"It doesn't matter if I'm a witch or not… Curses are what I do best." She removed her hand from the vein, reduced to a pulp, while squeezing every fiber of her back to bring the whip back to her. Ed, dissolved and burned, was dragged along the wood as entire blocks of the gigantic tree separated. Ed impacted just a little in front of her feet, bouncing in his soft, oily cocoon. Jeanne raised what remained of her bitten hand, dragging him with the sinuous iron.

"Now you really must die." Jeanne smiled from rosy cheeks pervaded with tears and sweat. The fluid remaining on her hand condensed into a pinkish-gray pulp. Ed suddenly raised a hand from the cocoon, pointing at her throat. The chitin broke, and the impact crushed the flesh. His body was hurled downward, shattering the bark as heavy blocks of wood plummeted with him. Jeanne followed, darting to drive her knuckles into his body again.

The second impact completely shattered the tree, launching the two toward the cold concrete. A cloud of debris freed itself, growing with every single large branch crashing to the earth. Jeanne found herself lying on the ground, with the damp scent of blood spread over her entire body. She rose slowly, trembling, with her vision blurred by a film of various colors. Distorted but familiar voices reached her ears, while pain and heat clouded smell and touch.

"In the end I'm forced to correct myself…" Ed's voice echoed distorted around her, while a constant, oppressive buzz spread through the air.

"It would have been better if you died in the womb." Millions of wings dispersed the smoke, obscuring the sun with their black, sharp bodies. They were barely larger than a man's fist, completely black and swollen with dark pustules. Ed lay at the center of that storm of insects, with something stuck in his back, like a bag." Horizon Vert, Nid de Frelons!" A bombardment of small creatures hurled themselves at her, with enough force in their stingers to pierce the concrete below.

The entire area was perforated, covered with thin, deep craters and pools of dark brownish slime. Jeanne moved in the air, dashing and turning her body, free-falling into the sea. The girl swung white paint tentacles beneath the island, halting her fall and maneuvering in the dark rain. Some died on impact, while others curved their trajectory. The first insect to reach her drove its stinger into her shoulder, tearing flesh away almost surgically"It doesn't matter… They're still insects."

Jeanne turned sharply, biting one between her teeth, making the carcass explode. The venom tinged blue before it could scar her eyes. She planted her feet on the ice as the entire swarm crossed the island and surrounded her. Pink filaments emerged from the wounds, binding to the underlying muscles. A red glow spread in her iris, and faster than instant can describe an act, the entire swarm was reaped by the scythe.

"It's coming." The pool at Ed's feet changed color, from brown to gray. A colossal cloud of dense, hot smoke enveloped the region, expanding so rapidly it swept the earth away. He was in the middle, with his throat parched as what remained of the insects plummeted to the ground, writhing. He turned sharply, meeting the girl's mallet.

"What?" With a single hand, he stopped the impact, fracturing the ground beneath him. Jeanne noticed he had changed: his face thinner, devoid of the earlier marks and decidedly younger and more slender. A greenish glow began to nest in his pupils. The frame-mallet was hurled away, and almost immediately his dark fingers tightened around Jeanne's throat.

"My ability doesn't belong to your category, but nothing prevents me from imitating you as much as possible. This amount of energy wouldn't be possible without an Overload if I didn't have this." He pointed to the silver mechanism on the back of his neck, tied to a black, slimy bag that continued to inject a greenish, clumpy liquid into him.

"This is a nutritional 'paste' obtained from the slaughter of various Helspawn. Normally it's a poison, but for me it's simply an all-too-ample reserve of energy!" He slammed her to the ground, raising the surrounding rock. With equal force, he kicked her away. Jeanne tumbled through the rubble, getting back on her feet almost by inertia.

"I've already discussed my hatred for this flower, but I believe it's a fitting end for you." Hundreds of roots emerged rapidly from the ground, growing around him like a spiral. In a few moments, a colossal greenish stem formed, with a yellowish bud at the top. An extreme heat began to radiate, burning the earth. Instinctively, she bit her finger, releasing enough blood.

"It's too bright…"" Coin Ensoleillé." The flower bloomed, releasing golden sparks. In the few moments following its hatching, a massive spike of energy was felt throughout the singularity. Wrapped in snow, Monica saw that golden glow rival the dull sun.

"But that… Is that Jeanne's region?! Wasn't the trace supposed to have diminished?" Instinctively, she raised her arms, making the Frequency flow through her body. A beam of pure energy scythed through Icarus, extending to every region. Wherever it touched, the air burned, and the earth melted into a shapeless mass of waste and incandescent metal. The clouds around the singularity dissipated as the beam ceased its fury, dispersing into Hel. Wrapped in smoke, with an impassive face, Monica rose.

Her arms were burning but unharmed, like the rest of her body.

"So Ed has decided to unleash himself? This is rare indeed." Behind her, a voice echoed. A rift opened, depicting a snowy forest of sharp pines. A man dressed in a white shirt and bluish jacket made his appearance. He wore trousers wider than classical aesthetic sense would allow. In his hand, a mass of sleet and ice began to accumulate, almost like a miniature blizzard.

"I've found you, dear comrade… Commander Monica Net!" Without an answer, the woman stomped her foot on the ground, shaking the air as she engaged that man. Returning to the base of the sunflower, Ed advanced slowly, gently laying his feet on the semi-liquid ground as the colossal flower dissipated into black ash. He walked with a sure step, perfectly symmetrically, first one step and then consequently the other, without swaying.

In his hand, a whitish pulp began to form, while one of his eyes tinged completely red before segmenting. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"You really managed to paint a reflective surface in the air? I imagined it was possible using the outline of your painting as a frame." He stopped to observe her: she was panting with her gaze turned downward and her hair almost forming a veil. At her feet, a pool of hot blood had formed, rippled at times by the remains of organs sliding from the gigantic gash where her chest and arm once were. The grayish, glossy surface dissipated, vanishing into nothing.

"I deduce this is the end." A web exploded from his hands, wrapping around her leg. Dozens of small spiders were born from the sticky threads, biting her flesh repeatedly. Her eyes widened as a moan of pain escaped her wet lips.

"You know, I believe it's late for me to repeat myself, but I didn't wish for you to meet death in these conditions. There's little dignity in a body shredded and left to rot in the void. The only satisfaction is drawn by nature. Only she can give value to this sinful existence." He took another step, fading more and more from Jeanne's sight.

"I've seen what mankind has done to nature. Our evolution has extinguished the ability to see beauty, then that of imitating it, and finally, of appreciating it. We can only make ourselves like what our experience considers central to the individual." A branch sprouted from the ground, transforming into a seat for the young Ed, while Jeanne writhed on the ground.

"Everything lives, and therefore everything suffers. It's not necessary to have a superior consciousness to understand it. Metas are nothing but the last answer this sick world has concocted, the most conscious thing that exists. This is also one of the reasons I agree with Malcolm and our client." Jeanne, among the dozens of moans, managed to hear those words.

"Clie… Client?" She sighed, harpooning the flesh on her chest with her nails.

"I've never seen them, only heard of them. For them, Metas are fundamental to humanity's future, while for Malcolm they are the key to extinction. I don't wish for everything to cease, but I deduce that by now all roads lead to that." The tree he sat on continued to grow, slowly obscuring the sky and letting little or nothing filter through its grayish canopy.

"Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?" A heavy breath spread around him as his face continued to rejuvenate.

"If this is the only path that awaits the human race, then extinction is preferable." Jeanne tried to rise, feeling her abdomen pierced by sharp flashes of pain and imaginary flames produced by her nerves.

"I am blind to the future, and I despise withered gardens, so nothing remains but the refuge of the fruitless sowing of the present." He continued to stare at her, with a couple of tears sliding down her pale cheeks. She let out a rattle as she searched with her intact hand for the frame, scattered who knows where in the rubble.

"Forgive me, your death should have been more delicate." With a snap of his fingers, flowers of a thousand colors sprouted from the cracks, drinking the blood seeped into the cement and dust. Thus she slid into unconsciousness, wrapped in the disgusting stench of variegated ferrous efflorescences. A freezing wind moved the hair from her face, bringing her back to feel at least the rustle on her skin. The sky above her was gray, just like the ash she so detested.

Around her, weighed down by dirty sleet, were small and short sunflowers, almost stocky. They barely reached her waist as soon as she managed to rise. The air was heavy, and every breath seemed to prick her throat. In that boundless field of dead yellow, nothing attracted her as much as the white canvas before her.

The rough white was supported by light wood, slightly damp and laden with dark halos; one of the feet rested badly, making the structure tilt to the right, and some screws protruded from the bottom of the easel, unnatural in their size, as did the canvas itself. With every step she took, magnetically drawn to that peculiar white rectangle, it seemed to grow larger. A frigid darkness buried her completely as the snow seemed to intensify. Soon only vague tints of yellow remained for the field.

A shiver seized her belly, forcing her to lower her gaze. Feeling her heart beat without rhythm, sometimes several times in a single instant, while at others it stopped only to start again with vigor. Her breath had died down, and she struggled to raise her forehead.

"This will please Mommy and Mann!" Her blood froze in her chest, feeling her muscles contract to force her to look at who was now dirtying the canvas with splashes of red and black. Before her, a young Jeanne was stirring, busy swinging a brush too long for what her small arm could carry. She swore she saw something like a serpent slithering under the flesh, pulling back a little before continuing toward the shoulder.

"You… Why are you here?" The child stopped moving, slowly lowering her head. She began to tremble, then burst out laughing. The colors on the canvas stirred like a knot of worms, changing shape and appearance. Familiar faces appeared among the rags of color, faces she would have preferred to forget.

"IT'S YOUR FAULT!" A cacophony of voices hammered her as her vision blurred and her mouth took on a nauseating taste. The little her became pitch-black, without mouth or eyes, yet the laughter continued.

"Stop… I… I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!" Her voice broke, overpowered by the continuous malignant echo.

"Jeanne… My dear Jeanne, why do you find it so hard to accept?" She seemed to hear her own thoughts, but the voice came from behind her. Jeanne moved to turn, meeting herself a few centimeters from her face. She carried the same smell, the same smile. Her breath tasted of ash and iron, but the detail that most shook her was the lucid red eyes, wrapped in a grayish conjunctiva. Rather than approach her or the canvas, Jeanne stepped aside. The figure was just like her, except for the gaze.

She wore a tight black veil, open at the chest as if to show her dark scar. The same scar from that fire.

"This is our third meeting, you know? Now you're an adult, truly a magnificent woman." The voice was enchanting, more beautiful than any she seemed to have ever had. She smiled, tilting her head, never blinking.

"I've never seen you! Why do you resemble me? Why…" She clutched her forehead, feeling a strange pulsation in her chest.

"But how? We've always been together, from the moment your mother gave birth to you. Your father left you this curse." She shook her head, trying to pull away, but it was impossible.

"We've always been beside you. We are your biology and your nature. Come now, don't you recognize me? I am your blood, your breast, your brain. I am you. No one is greater than the blood they host." Behind that other Jeanne, a black fog began to form and swirl, transforming into a cauldron of tentacles and various anthropomorphic curves.

"Look at you, you're blooming with love yet so hesitant to let yourself go, to take what you desire. You're afraid you might be abandoned again, of seeing flames devour the things dear to you once more." She approached the canvas, guided by the thread-like limbs of the foggy mass. Suddenly the colors changed, becoming sharp in their form.

"No… No…" The real Jeanne shook her head slowly, trying to refuse the familiarity of the features. The boy emerged from the canvas, covered in white and black paint, falling with his head in the hands of the figure cloaked in fog.

"So this is the object of desire?" She ran her pointed fingers along his chest, marking the pale flesh with red furrows rich in scars.

"No… What are you d-doing?" Her version smiled, flashing ruby eyes.

"I'm simply filling the void in your heart as always. Every one of your shortcomings I've always compensated for with what you desired. It's not my fault if you're too quick to digest them." Having said this, she closed her fingers like a wedge and pierced his chest. Red gushes stained the flowers below and both women. Jeanne stared at her with wild eyes, agitated as lamps. The other her said nothing, simply offered her the still-coriaceous heart before her, smiling.

Without cognition, if not for the horror she felt, she took a step forward. She recognized in the fog itself another face of hers, fragmented and weeping, craved by what seemed to be a thousand hands. She understood how ancient that fragment of her was, how sad and how damaged it had become.

"Stop… Please stop!" Her body didn't obey, and so her tongue caressed the rough metallic flesh. A perverse halo expanded in every cell of her body as she met the gaze of the mutilated body, left dangling from the canvas with its face dripping with blood. She felt disgust, but in that moment, she managed to mirror herself in the blood at her feet.

"How sweet…" She saw herself smile before biting into the organ. The figure smiled, caressing her face as the entire field was irrigated with blood. Warm crimson cascades swept away every trace of life, abandoning her to the meal. Her throat bulging at each bite. A large flower rested on her mutilated body, with the metal stylus pointed at her forehead.

"With this, the meeting concludes. I hoped it would evolve differently." Ed raised his arm, followed by the immediate movement of the flower-dagger. He sighed, preparing to lower his fingers when all the air around him became cold and heavy. He noticed, dancing in the silence, a flaming petal a few fingers from his face. Soon they multiplied, flooding the ruins with red shapes. Ed noticed where the center of that storm rested, identifying it precisely with Jeanne.

"Ascan had spoken of it…" Immediately, he ordered the flower to launch, trying to pierce her skull. The stem immediately caught fire, reducing to ash just before it could pierce her flesh.

"The same advantage that can be obtained with the serum, but in a natural way. The Einflussbereich (the area of influence)." All the Frequency around them began to move toward the girl, flowing into the wounds and replacing them with a pinkish slime with various red and white streaks. He continued trying to lash the body with roots that emerged from the ground, besieging it with monstrous insects, yet every attempt only reduced his creatures to paint.

"It must end now!" A couple of monstrous plants emerged from his arms, with bark resembling jaws in every way. Where trickles of saliva would normally be, there were rows of obese larvae of a vague terracotta color." Faune Dévorant!" The heads of those carnivorous abominations were decapitated, disintegrating in the air as the grayish paint returned to orbit around her, now risen again. From her flank, instead of blood, a dense river of multicolored paint flowed.

Her hair had whitened, leaving only various black patches scattered. She raised her gaze, showing a smile crowned by a vermilion glow. Jeanne touched her flank, feeling the pale flesh just formed. Everything around them was covered by the blood-red paint flowers." Blank." The air vibrated before being crossed by a very long, thin white thread. With a single yank, the frame was recovered, returning tightly to its owner's hand.

Ed reflexively raised his hand, finding it pressed to his neck in an attempt to deflect her slash. The field of flowers had been torn open in a straight line." Kobaltblauw." She murmured with a smile, kicking him away as a colossal shadow buried all the ruins beneath it. Ed raised his gaze, finding himself face to face with a gigantic mass of deep blue water. A dome of wood rose around him as all those tons plummeted to the earth, sweeping away every remnant of life. Jeanne advanced, immune to the pressure.

"Only mediocre painters fear their own canvas." From the tips of her fingers, agile and swift, a thread of red paint soared. All the water turned to flames, swallowing the entire region in tongues of fire and rivers of molten rock. White steam spread silently as Ed rose with flowers covering the large burns on his body. Still blooming, unharmed, the scarlet flowers dispersed their petals with an iron aroma. Smiling, with the scythe resting on her shoulders, Jeanne stared at him.

From her mouth dripped multicolored drops, while in her eye stirred the same color as the flowers.

"So you too would be a worse monster than us?" He said, grabbing the device implanted in his flesh.

"Your considerations lack acuity, gardener. Here I see nothing but a lavish meal and a white canvas." She brought a mass of paint above her head as the scythe blade rested just behind her shoulders. More and more nourishment was extracted for Ed as larvae and roots emerged and spread from beneath him.

"I must force the state of influence too, if he should manage to reuse a move like that…" Ed saw the sphere on Jeanne's head tinged black, beginning to ripple its surface and vibrate. Black is nothing but the deprivation of the entire visual spectrum; if union gives the whiteness of white, then removal gives only the suffocating void of black. From nothing originated, but perpetually present. Ed had well understood the potential of Jeanne's ability.

He knew how unpredictable it could be, what countermeasures could be implemented, but nothing prepared him for that blow. The surrounding Frequency, almost bound and fused, was irrigated until it lost every characteristic." Donker Canvas: Tenebrae." A single black beam crossed the air, coating anything it touched with a putrid, thin layer of dense pitch. Ed's arm fell to the ground, tinged with darkness. Without taking his eye off her, he felt how, behind him, the entire region was crumbling with fury.

On what remained of his bicep, numerous flowers clustered, trying to regenerate it.

"It's not like Malcolm… She didn't erase reality. She covered it." From her face, a reddish slime began to gush, completely covering her neck and chest.

"Blood is the paint, the innards are the brush, and the flesh the canvas." She murmured with a smile as Ed drew on every single remainder of the substance. As the sap flowed into him, Jeanne vanished.

"Without rest it reveals itself, expands tirelessly in search of a conduit…" The healthy arm turned into a pulp of carapaces, chelicerae, and small dancing forceps, clashing against the dark scythe and the bloodthirsty face of its owner.

"How damn strong is she now… Even David would struggle in these conditions." Ed was kicked away, losing part of the mass on his arm. All the sap in the container had now vanished. Both he and she vanished, leaving behind only a violent roar. They found themselves in the air, with chitin and iron at each other's throats.

"Yes… Nothing can be truer than this moment! The will to endure, to expand and bury… It can only be art that desires to become real." Ed's other forceps grabbed her forearm, shredding it. From the thin, transparent wings sprouted from his shoulder blades, many small insects took flight. They embedded themselves in her abdomen, hollowing it out. Jeanne sketched a smile before bursting into a raucous, horrid laugh.

"Yes! Violence is art!" She amputated her arm, using all the blood left floating around them as paint. The drops lost their red, becoming a whitish azure and simultaneously gray." Donderwerk: Bliksemschicht!" A pole of thin iron crossed Ed, impaling him through the heart. Before he could realize it, the molten rock, the flowers, the sea, and a single bluish lightning bolt tore through Icarus's rocks. Both fell to the ground, wrapped in toxic electric smoke.

"She must die now!" The first to rise was Ed, now perfectly injected with the nutritional sap. He tore out the device as around him dozens of variegated life forms began to be born." Horizon Vert: L'esprit du monde." The haze withdrawn, Jeanne appeared, smiling as she observed the new figure: the entirety of his body had been covered with a dense, angular armor of a gaudy green, from which fluttered a mantle of flowers and colored lianas, long to the ankles.

On his head, two sinuous antennae stood proud, crowned by a gaze accompanied by many small pairs of multicolored eyes. Girding the new armor was a tail decorated with a more globular and pointed end.

"You will die here, witch." Ed stamped his new legs, longer and more massive, like those of a cricket. The girl stared at him with a glint of curiosity, smiling as she raised the scythe.

"I wonder now what color your guts will be? Blue, greenish, or black?" Having said this, the two launched into the clash, shattering the air as the buzzing of beasts accompanied the blooming of flowers.