"You finally came... Do you know how long I’ve been trapped here? This place is suffocating."

This wasn’t good. Three minutes, give or take, before the other party broke into the room. If that happened, he’d be caught in the crossfire, and they wouldn’t hesitate to come after him either. But with Luccy here, nothing was going to go as planned.

"Oh, come on. Can’t you let this slide? We’ve shared a bed, remember? We’re practically closer than most people already."

She approached Scar with the energy of someone who had no patience for whatever he was about to say.

"I can see you’ve become stronger. That flame, Gluttony... it absorbed my lightning, just as your blade once did. You may be able to fight back, but time isn’t on your side."

She wasn’t wrong. But Scar wasn’t about to give up either. To his left, among the many priceless items lining the vault, the tablet sat in a container on a shelf.

All he had to do was read it, that was all, and his journey here would be complete. He wasn’t going to let everything go to waste, even if it meant fighting Luccy and the party that would be coming for it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

His expression darkened.

"Alright... I suppose there’s no avoiding this. I’ll fight."

He summoned his stance and called forth Bastian’s hands. Hands of Discord.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Luccy giggled.

"Rosa mentioned that your future had grown blurred recently. It seems they were correct. Your actions have become... interesting."

Scar wasn’t having it. He attacked without hesitation, and Luccy met him head-on.

The moments that followed were blow after blow, but neither was willing to go all out. Scar couldn’t risk destroying the tablet, and Luccy had her own restrictions.

She had the backing of Dain and Lotus, but the items in this room were priceless, destroying them would lead to consequences that went well above her superiors.

Even so, Luccy was enjoying every second of it. Four arms, and she matched each one with precision and equal speed, smiling through it all as if this were just a leisurely walk.

Scar’s attention began to waver. The Flames of Discord were supposed to stir negative emotions within Luccy, enough to drop her to her knees, but it was as if they did nothing to her at all.

When Scar encountered this ability, just being near it affected him. And yet this girl stood there completely unfazed.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Out of frustration, Scar acted fast. He grabbed Luccy’s hand, and though she pulled herself free almost instantly, that was all he needed. He switched from Discord to Void and launched an attack her way.

One moment she was there, and the next she wasn’t. The Flame of Void erased everything it touched, but Luccy wasn’t among them. She appeared behind Scar, and he reacted, but her fist met him square in the ribs and sent him crashing into the ground.

Scar spat blood. Luccy was already acting like it was over. The Enhancement Technique had been running the whole time, and that hit had still torn through him.

He groaned.

’Damn it... I only have a minute left!’

<< Flash Step >>

He forced himself up and closed the gap in an instant. Another flame of void. She disappeared like smoke, and the next thing he felt was the impact.

His limit was close. Luccy was in her Ordinary Form and still taking him apart. His Emotional Form meant nothing against her.

There was no path to winning, he could feel that clearly. But determination didn’t care about odds. The only reason he’d survived this long was Purple’s Fate Weaving.

The enemies lined against him weren’t just human. God-like beings had marked him too. That kind of threat didn’t bow to a little fire. He needed something deeper, more rage, more determination than he’d managed to scrape together so far.

He dragged himself to his feet and raised his hand to strike. Before he could, a voice broke the moment, coming from where the tablet was kept.

His head snapped toward the sound. The other party, he thought. But no. Whatever was speaking, it wasn’t that.

Whatever Scar had expected, it wasn’t this. The figure wore a mask and a smile too wide to be comfortable, dressed head to toe like they were bound for a clown parade. Like Quagmire, Clown of the Living, had shed its true form and slipped into something human.

Scar frowned. The rumors about the Vey family’s past surfaced in his mind. This felt like exactly that. Was Purple behind this?

The clown broke the container, snatched the tablet, and moved to toss it to Scar. Luccy, visibly agitated, didn’t let it happen. A bolt of lightning crossed the room, and the clown’s head ceased to exist.

For a moment, Scar’s heart stopped cold. The tablet was as good as gone. Then, before the thought could settle, it was in his hands, tossed there regardless of everything that had just happened.

Luccy’s attacks came without care now, precious items no longer a concern. It didn’t matter. The clown refused to fall. Countless threads pulled at his shattered body, stitching and reshaping every part she’d obliterated.

Luccy snorted.

"Wait... isn’t this the form Quagmire copied? So the Purple Girl is involved... but this isn’t her. Then who are you?"

The clown regenerated and gave Luccy a polite bow. There was no urgency or anger. As if being obliterated was simply something that had happened, and courtesy demanded acknowledgment regardless.

"Heaven’s sorrow took shape... and that shape is me. Call me the Reaper."

A smile touched Scar’s lips. He knew that voice. Knew exactly who it belonged to.

But the stone pulled his attention away, whatever was imprinted on it hadn’t been put there by accident and the energy from it wasn’t normal.

"The brightest rose before the throne and mistook nearness for equality. Light admired itself, and reverence turned inward. One thought was spoken: "Why not?" and the heavens learned the sound of breaking. Since then, the sky keeps silent, for even stars remember how falling begins."

Something recoiled deep in him. The words were vague, almost careless, like whoever wrote them hadn’t understood what they were putting down. As if they deliberately wanted to piss him off. But Scar understood.

They stirred something old and familiar. The weight of the heavens pressed down, and behind it, quiet at first, was anger.

The second party collapsed the massive metallic wall and walked in. Whatever they’d expected, it wasn’t this. A wrecked room, a guard and something that looked like a clown and had no right to exist. And a man standing there, holding what they came for.

They yelled, but that didn’t reach Scar. They could have the tablet back.

He’d wanted something real from it, clarity on what he was. What it gave him was hollow words and a thin, familiar dark energy that had no business stirring what it stirred. And yet it had brought everything back. That was what he couldn’t let go of.

The rage consumed him. Everyone saw his body giving way to golden light, too bright to hold a stare at for long. Massive wings erupted from his shoulder blades, and two smaller ones unfurled from his waist. The room felt different with him standing in it.

Luccy smiled, but it was the wrong kind of smile. She knew exactly what she was looking at. Scar had activated his Protector State.

"Ha! Seems I’m finished here. I only stopped by to see how things would turn out since Rosa couldn’t read your future anymore."

She turned to walk away. Scar watched and had no intention of letting her. It wasn’t even about the fight anymore. Her presence alone irritated him.

He extended his arm, and the flames of light answered, surging forward and twisting into the shape of a massive star just before they reached her.

Luccy pulled away in time, barely. The metallic wall bore the full impact, a star-shaped crater left in her place. Then she was gone.

The clown offered one last respectful bow and then simply ceased to be there.

The arriving party became his next target. Scar threw the tablet their way, a distraction more than a gesture, and before a single hand could close around it, another star tore through them. It burned through most of them without slowing. The survivors didn’t stay to reconsider.

He exhaled deeply.

"So this is how it turns out... how utterly unsatisfying."

Everything he needed was in his hands. This godforsaken place had served its purpose. He was Morningstar, that much was clear now, and he understood well enough what that name made people feel. What he understood better was how to deepen it.

In the second hall, the last party had finally arrived and struck. The resulting chaos emptied the room of everyone who didn’t have to stay.

The guards remained, led by Haven, as they engaged the attackers and did their best to take as many into custody as they could.