Testament - Vol 1. RE:BiRTH

ReBirth : Guisei and Nabi

It burned. The same endless pain shot through Guisei's arm, just like that night he experienced before. His mind raced more and more as the sensation flowed from his hand to his shoulder, his arm set ablaze by the pain of that mark. He screamed out for something—anything to come for him, and though the words hadn't felt his mouth... His call was answered.

By an unnatural voice.

One that was like his own, but not.

Familiar and unfamiliar.

Guisei opened his eyes to a world of darkness; the light of his golden eyes illuminated it like a broken light as his eyes flickered open and close the more, he fought through the pain. A pain he couldn't describe...

A void within that couldn't be replaced, like a hollow echo of something that was in the past. The boy took a step forward into the darkness. With each step, the burning pain of the mark dulled like the color of his eyes, greying into the surrounding darkness until it was only a quiet hum as opposed to the voices that rang through his mind like static.

Despite that, a single voice stood out.

"It's begun... and there's nothing I can do anymore... Sorry, Guisei."

His eyes opened to the familiar voice.

Guisei opened his eyes to the sight of the crimson sky of Limbo. A blood-soaked sky like the hard earth that his head laid upon, cracked like his lips as he let out a tired exhale. His finger twitched with hesitation as he slowly sat up, his eyes tracing the abnormal cracks in the ground like a human's veins until landing on the site of Nabi.

"What the..."

The girl flinched, anticipating another voice that wished to threaten the two of them as she laid on the ground only for her mind to process the familiar-sounding voice, Guisei's voice. Her gaze dulled as she saw Guisei stand over her body, unable to stop it from closely examining him for any possible injuries despite how many times she'd already done it.

"You're...awake, Greed," Nabi said with the same monotone cadence.

Guisei squinted towards her, still trying to make sense of things around him. From the hard, cracked ground to the lack of Erena near him, something felt off, more than the throbbing pain of the mark Mammon gifted to him. His head tremored like the ground, shaken by the shockwaves of battle in the distance. Despite his willpower, the sound of his knees buckling was all Guisei fully remembered once he fell next to her.

"Where's Erena?" Guisei asked.

Nabi shook her head at the question, unable to answer.

Horns.

Eyes.

Godlike Curse Pressure....

She let the scene in her mind play. The markings spread across Guisei just like how it was when she found him that night. His eyes were familiar to her, yet she pushed the notion from her mind of whose eyes they were, but the only thing she couldn't shake was the jagged horn that erected from his head.

"I found you collapsed and had to keep you from dying, like usual. I didn't see the girl from the Household of Flame, not that it particularly mattered," she said, maintaining her calm as she debated asking him about it.

Shook his head at hearing about Erena. Static overtook his mind whenever his thoughts focused on her, yet Nabi's words pulled him back to reality. Guisei scoffed at her words.

"It isn't always, maybe once or twice, plus I pay it back double, anyway!"

"Sure, you do, like the raid of that trafficking syndicate in Luxa when you blew your cover, or when you tried to handle a mission alone when I actually got injured only to escalate that situation."

"That's cherry-picking. I saved your ass just as much."

"Still, I have yet to have any reference as to when."

"My memory is bad," Guisei replied, averting his gaze from the girl as he searched his mind for just one example. His memory was like an ocean obscured by a mist that he couldn't see through, yet a single moment in time shined through.

"The tournament in Satania."

Nabi remembered the sight of the snow that night better than any other. Her skin burned with the pain of the ability she used, the torturous abilities of the Wrath Curse Series, even though the pain she endured now made her body numb she'd never forgotten the pain, but also the sight of the boy with golden eyes who she brushed aside coming to save her.

"One time."

The rumbles intensified as Guisei let out a childish chuckle at Nabi's admittance to the fact. To his surprise, through the chime of blades and reiju around him that echoed through his mind the idea he remembered something outside of that was comforting.

"I'll accept my win," Guisei said with a smirk as another Shockwave flashed through the sky.