Dark Mist: A Mercenary's path

The lull as the storm ends.

Rosemary was blasted away from Sariel as Sariel's bond with the system fell apart. Rosemary had done it; she had saved her last connection, her mother. But such an achievement came at a cost. With most of her life force used to set her mother free, Rosemary had less than ten minutes left to live.

Rosemary's fingers wrapped around her sword's handle and pulled Yamato out of her chest. As the light silver blade came free, crimson blood gushed from the wound and puddled in front of her. Rosemary stared into one of the puddles and her weary, yet content was reflected back at her. Her red eyes had a light in them that she thought was extinguished long ago.

'I suppose finally being able to save a person I care about... brought that back.' Rosemary thought, a faint, content, smile tugging across her face.

She shakily raised the blood-stained sword up and began to slice open a portal. In a practiced move, Yamato's tip caught the fabric of reality and Rosemary pulled. The sword ripped open a whirling blue portal and Rosemary limped through it.

As she staggered out, she was greeted with Julius kneeling in a field of white flowers. He didn't seem to notice her as he rested the tip of his sword on the base of his neck. His knuckles white from gripping the blade too hard and his brows covered in a cold sweat. He's about to commit suicide, but Rosemary doesn't have the strength left to stop him. Even if she tried, she would be too slow to.

Rosemary slowly walked towards him, her every sound masked by her numerous stealth skills. Every step aggravated her gaping chest wound, but she didn't care. She had something she needed to do.

Miraculously, the blade slipped from Julius's hands and fell into the flowers. He fell onto his hands and started gasping. His breaths are quick and shallow and his pupils dilate and contract wildly. He pushed himself onto his knees and stared at his shaking hands.

"Shit..." he breathed out, his hands curling into fists. "How many times am I going to have to do this before I can finally die? How much practice does it take for a man to kill himself!?"

Julius slammed his fists into the ground and swung his head back backwards. A rage-filled scream of agony ripped through the halcyon field. When his lungs ran out of air, he let his head fall and his chest rose and fell with several shaky breaths.

'He's scared.' Rosemary realized. 'He's attempting to kill himself, but his fear is holding him back from completing the deed. He still has something to live for, and his mind is preventing him from killing himself before he can complete it.'

"Do I deserve to live?" Julius asked himself, thinking back to everything he had done. "No... not after the things I've done in the name of revenge. How many children are left fatherless because of my... crusade. How many lives have I destroyed... What do I have left to give?"

Julius closed his eyes and picked up his sword. His dull royal blue eyes appeared in the reflection on the longsword's dull silver blade. How long had his eyes been like this? They looked so... lifeless and tired, more fitting for an old weary soldier instead of a young man nearing his mid-twenties.

He raised the sword up and tried again, pressing the tip on the base of his neck, only to let go at the last moment and let the blade fall into the field. With his teeth clenched, the disgraced hero took several deep breaths and raised his head. The cloudy sky stared back and a soft breeze picked around him.

Julius thought back to why he came here in the first place. Why he specifically decided to end it all in this field of white flowers. An old memory remerges, one of a blissful and happier time. When he wasn't the hero and his mother was still alive.

When he was just four years old, his pregnant mother brought him here. A field of white thornless roses, a safe haven and a sanctuary, free from the corruption of the outside world. It was one of the last memories he had of her before her sickly body gave out shortly after birthing his younger brother.