@umxbrxa // i bet u thought i forgot about this
--It hurts. It hurts so badly, like every space in his head is being overloaded, a tarry contaminant gunk poured over every thought, noxious and burning. It’s everywhere, in his veins, caught in his throat (he can’t breathe, he’s choking, and it hurts), tar filling up the spaces between his bones.
Cú gasps in between the burning, breathes shallow because he can’t manage anything else, and tries to activate any runes, anything, but it all comes out wrong, the gestures too shaky and verbal activation pointless when he can’t breathe.
He can feel it burning him out, taking what is ‘Cú’ and replacing it with something that isn’t, his already jumbled memories catching and burning, the sense of who he is falling prey to the oil in him. Options, there are options-- (it’s so hard to think, all he can feel is this exhaustive burning, the tar spilling out over his mouth or maybe it’s blood and he’s bitten his tongue, he has to burn). Reset his saint graph. He can’t die like this, he will never, he will always die on his own terms-- Cú raises his staff like a spear, prepares to shove it through his own ribcage, bleed out here ignobly but of his own will.
And then the staff falls from his hands with a clatter onto Chaldea’s floor. And Cú follows shortly after, hacking up a dark oily blood.
(Q: Who are you?
A: I don’t know.)
The man who isn’t Cú Chulainn stands up weakly, hauling himself to his feet unsteadily. He slogs off, walking as if in a dream, towards somewhere familiar. He doesn’t really know or care where he’s going, but there is a pull and he’ll follow it, because he just doesn’t care.