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He wasn’t supposed to die just like that.
Every movement, every detail down to the last particles of dust, had all been previously anticipated and accounted for.
That’s what Lesser Lord Kusanali was good at; winning fights before they had even been dreamt of, with her oh-so-wise intuition and a condescending grin etched into her face.
However, despite her sadism and superiority complex, she clearly wasn’t the type to let someone just…perish. Such is the weakness of that so-called “prodigy”.
There’s no doubt that she had some hand in the untimely and yet inevitable and long-awaited demise of the Sixth Harbinger.
The usurper becomes the usurped, as Dottore would say. He never seemed to doubt the strength of the tiny god the way the sages had, and that filled the puppet with nothing but disgust.
How could he so openly praise a deity so pathetic that it could be thrown away like worthless dross and replaced?
Isn’t that what you are, too?
Maybe that idiotic Doctor had a penchant for horrific little creations that never had anything expected of them.
But he had to agree somehow. If he could be considered anything more than a discarded object, then the same logic had to apply to her.
Better safe than sorry, or something.
But that was all the past.
The world is just an elaborate tapestry of lies, of course he would be bested by a mirror image of himself.
One that undoubtedly did not have the guts to take a life.
So where did it go wrong?
—
The first thing the puppet noticed was how bright the red was.
Like some kind of renaissance painting on the dirty marble, with the intricacies and broad ‘brushstrokes’ of a trained hand pondering heaven and earth.
He had admired the scene for a moment, basking in the screeching choir and ambient lights.
Until he realised that this was no art gallery. This was a crime scene.
He was the crime, beaten and bruised and ugly, so very ugly. He didn’t think that’s how his face looked. Maybe he should have put on more makeup.
What a shame.
What a shame that even a wooden doll could bleed so much.
What a shame that those silks would forever be stained.
What a shame that he was, in the end, exactly what the cruel progenitress had deemed him to be.
“He” watched as his own lifeless body was carried away.
As the crowd, were they matra?; dispersed like ashes to a river in the morning rays.
As the scene was cleaned.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Criminals always return to the scene, don’t they? He knew he did.
Surely just a little longer before he’d find out who had finally managed to do the unthinkable and kill the faulty vessel of eternity.
What a shame that whatever the sages had pumped into those luminous “veins” seemed to affect him, specifically his memory, in such an irritating way.
The killer will surely arrive soon enough.
Maybe the golden-haired Traveler had pried open the face of his iron casket of a body.
They’re too soft.
Maybe there had been an explosion.
You know that can’t kill you.
Maybe a fire.
Don’t make me laugh.
Nobody is coming.
And that’s when he came to his next conclusion.
I was the killer.
The revelation didn’t surprise him in the slightest. It was clearly impossible for anyone else; and it wasn’t like he had never tried that before.
“No, in fact, I wish I’d never been born at all…!”
… Or, at the very least, he had been a bystander that didn’t dodge the scythe of death when he saw it coming out of spite, or just hatred for life. Better late than never.
Doesn’t sound too bad. At least nobody else got the pleasure of doing the honours.
Yes, it’s only right that I got the last laugh.
And yet he still waited.
Why was he still waiting for something?
How could he expect closure from a world that had done nothing but ridicule him from the moment of his creation?
Even in death, he hadn’t been granted any sort of freedom.
What a shame.
—
One hundred and sixty eight days passed before a familiar figure ambled down the echoing corridors and entered the long-deserted Joururi Workshop.
A diminutive and pale girl, holding a single violet rose and the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“And what might you be doing here, Buer?”
He’s aware of his own voice, husky and tired and pathetic, echoing into the hypnotic chamber, and yet no sound reaches the archon’s pointed ears.
She strolls at an irritatingly slow pace towards the centre of the room, which was where he “was”, if one could consider this to be any state of being.
“Do you know I’m here? You must, what with your omniscient wisdom. How cruel you are, Lesser Lord.”
She pauses directly in front of him.
Perfect punting distance, if he still existed.
In spite of himself, the nameless puppet reaches out and attempts it anyway.
His hand dissolves into blue smoke upon contact.
“Well that’s just pathetic.”
Of course he would be damned to spend the rest of time as a figment of his own imagination. Maybe that’s how puppets are doomed to “die”.
He silently curses that foul woman, and her ideals.
Meanwhile, Buer places the flower, a Sumeru Rose, on the marble. It’s been cleaned to the point that it no longer resembles the rest of the flooring. Even if the blood is gone, it’s clear that something happened in that spot.
Should he feel guilty for destroying part of her abode?
Probably.
She turns on her heel.
She gently steps away.
“Careful now. Wouldn’t want you to take a tumble, now, would we?.”
To his horror, she spins back, her ivory hair whipping her face.
“Is somebody there?” Her voice shakes slightly. Seems that even her supposed victory couldn’t fix her self-confidence.
Silence.
“I’m sorry.”
And then she’s gone.