SOME KIṈD OҒ CĦΔIṈED GOD...
C̳̿͟͞h̳̿͟͞a̳̿͟͞p̳̿͟͞t̳̿͟͞e̳̿͟͞r̳̿͟͞ ̳̿͟͞T̳̿͟͞w̳̿͟͞e̳̿͟͞n̳̿͟͞t̳̿͟͞y̳̿͟͞-̳̿͟͞T̳̿͟͞h̳̿͟͞r̳̿͟͞e̳̿͟͞e̳̿͟͞
Reach the Office. Open the emergency maintenance channel. Restore Cain's administrator privileges.
Three objectives. Just three lines. And the fate of the entire Circus now revolved around them.
Kinger sat inside his little shelter, going over every step of their plan.
He understood... Cain had just placed the responsibility in their hands. From this point on, it was the humans who could make mistakes. And that was where the first problem emerged.
"If we all disappear at once, Abel will notice. If the Office still exists... it'll be the first place he checks"
Everyone understood that. Which meant the operation had to look like an ordinary day.
Kinger searched for patterns. Together, they recalled how quickly—and how often—Abel reacted to their requests, behavior, and movements.
Pomni became their scout. She wandered the Circus, searching for anything suspicious, looking for glitches... or another clue from Cain.
The entrance to the Office was still where it had always been—inside the airship, suspended high above the Circus. She carefully estimated where they could use that same cube again to trigger a collision and climb up.
Gangle began paying attention to the Circus itself. Which doors disappeared. Which new ones appeared. What Abel rebuilt... and what he strangely left untouched.
Zooble tested something else entirely. She deliberately disrupted the routine—moving props, rearranging objects, wandering where she normally wouldn't, acting unpredictably. She watched to see what actually caught Abel's attention.
Meanwhile, Ragatha continued doing what she did best: making everything seem normal. She helped everyone with the little things, and in many ways, it was her alone who kept the group functioning.
If Abel was watching them, he couldn't be allowed to see a group preparing for rebellion.
Someone peeked into Kinger's shelter, — "Kinger?"
He turned toward Zooble, squinting against the faint light spilling in from outside.
— "So... you're the one going into the Office. When do we start?"
He stayed silent for a couple of seconds, —"...For now? Nobody."
Zooble narrowed her eyes, —"Then what's the point of all this preparation?! W-we don't exactly have unlimited time."
—"Because right now...", he stopped himself, —"...we don't know anything. I mean... we already lost Jax because w-we acted blind."
The chess piece slowly clenched his fists, —"...Careful planning is the only reason this can still succeed."
Zooble said nothing. She simply nodded, pulled the pillow back over the entrance, and returned to the others. A minute later, the opening shifted again, and a tiny jester crawled inside.
—"Kinger? I think everything's ready.", she nodded confidently as she settled across from him.
He looked up, —"...Ready how?"
—"I checked the airship", she sat down opposite him, — "E-everything's still there... the cube too."
A faint smile crossed her face. Kinger lowered his eyes. It was good news. But right now... good news frightened him more than anything.
—"...Too easy."
Pomni frowned, —"What?"
—"If Abel really hasn't changed anything...", he slowly shook his head, —"...then either he's certain we won't go there... or he's already waiting for us."
Silence settled between them. Pomni was the first to break it, —"I'm coming with you."
Kinger looked up, —"...No."
—"Why?"
—"Because if there are two of us... the risk doubles."
Pomni frowned, —"But if something goes wrong... someone else can finish the job."
Kinger didn't answer.
—"If something goes wrong...", he looked directly into her eyes, —"...I-i want that someone to be you."
Pomni hesitated, —"...Then that gives me even more reason to come."
Just then, Zooble's voice came from the entrance
—"Knew it", she leaned inside, —"You two are already arguing"
Pomni sighed, —"He wants to go alone."
—"And you want to die heroically beside him?"
—"No!"
—"Then stop", Zooble turned toward Kinger, —"I'm going"
—"...No."
—"Why?"
—"Because it'd be far too suspicious... and far too dangerous.", Kinger slowly shook his head again, "...Chained never designed that Office for visitors."
...
—"...I'm the only one who even remotely knows what we're looking for."
A long silence followed. Then, unexpectedly quietly, Pomni asked, —"...What if you don't come back?"
Kinger didn't answer for a long time. Finally, in a calm voice, he said, —"...Then someone will have to continue where I left off..."
-----
Even so, they decided to send Zooble instead of Pomni. They didn't leave immediately. After making absolutely certain Abel wasn't watching them, the pair quietly slipped away.
As they approached the spot, they glanced around one last time. Kinger walked over to the small wooden cube resting nearby.
—"...You're sure you don't need a partner?", Zooble asked, watching him carefully, genuine concern in her voice.
Kinger carried the cube over and set it down, measuring the trajectory of what was supposed to be his ascent.
—"I've actually been inside that Office before", Zooble folded her arms, trying to sound convincing, —"For you, it'll practically be your first time... I-i mean, last time you weren't exactly... yourself."
—"...Well...", he held out a hand,—"I won't be alone... Cai— chained will be helping me."
The patchwork of mismatched shapes sighed, —"...Please. Everyone's counting on you."
Kinger narrowed his eyes, feeling the full weight of what rested on his shoulders, —"...Thank you."
Zooble blinked, —"...For what?"
—"...Because now...", he looked up toward the airship, —"...someone is still checking my conclusions."
...
—"...I can be wrong too."
Those words made Zooble fall silent. She had never heard Kinger say anything like that before.
—"...What scares me most isn't Ab— him."
Kinger quietly looked up at her, silently asking.
—"...It's the thought that... chained might be wrong."
...
—"...Because if he is... then there's no one left to believe in."
...
—"...Zooble... we should get moving," he said quietly, careful not to upset her.
With a sigh, she stepped closer and picked him up
—"...Honestly... we—", she looked away awkwardly, preparing to fold him in half, —"...I... I'm still angry at him. I get why he snapped at us... we stayed silent for far too long."
She pressed harder against Kinger's body, trying to squash him together. But he felt... far heavier than he should have.
—"...And he...", she turned her head away with a sigh, —"...chose the worst possible way to make us finally speak."
Zooble turned toward him, irritation crossing her face, —"...H-hey! Why isn't this working?!!"
She tried again, pushing harder, still careful not to hurt him. Grabbing the back of his head, she strained with all her strength, trying to force it down toward his lower body.
He refused to fold. Like solid wood.
—"...Ow...", Kinger winced.
—"...What the...", Zooble tried once more, pressing even harder.
This time he did bend... but like an actual person. With resistance, not with cartoon physics. She let go.
—"...What?" Kinger slowly straightened back up.
The two simply stared at each other.
—"...Maybe... you try?"
Kinger let out a tired sigh, —"...All right."
He grabbed his own head and attempted the familiar motion of pushing it back into his torso. He managed to lean forward— but his head stopped well short of reaching his body. A quiet crack echoed.
—"...Ah...", the chess piece instantly grabbed his lower back.
Zooble's eyes went wide. She looked from him to the airship, then back again.
—"What the heck?!!", her gaze slowly lifted toward the balloon, —"...How did we forget Abel changed the physics..."
—"...That's exactly why I didn't want to rush this", Kinger slowly straightened, skepticism written across his face.
—"...You just threw your back out."
He stood perfectly still for a few seconds before carefully standing upright again, —"...We need another way to get up there."
—"What other way-?! D-damn it, that was the only method we knew!"
—"...We're going back to the shelter," he said firmly.
----
The moment they returned, Kinger rushed straight into his little shelter while Zooble explained to the others that the plan had failed.
The chess piece immediately sent Cain a message through the Developer Log. Several minutes passed, no reply came. That worried Kinger more with every passing second.
----------------------------------------------------- > // Kinger: > Cube method failed. > // Kinger: > Cain? > // Kinger: > Do you read me? -----------------------------------------------------
—"I-I...", Pomni faltered, —"...I'm sorry... I-I just needed to make sure that method still worked...", she lowered her head in embarrassment, clenching her fists.
Zooble and the others stayed silent, realizing they all should have remembered by now that this world no longer obeyed its old rules.
—"...This isn't your fault", Ragatha finally said quietly.
—"No.", Zooble shook her head, —"It's all of our fault."
She rubbed her face in frustration, —"We're still thinking like we're living in the old Circus."
----------------------------------------------------- > // Kinger: > Please respond. -----------------------------------------------------
Kinger let his hands fall in defeat. A cold feeling settled deep inside him.
"If something had happened... he would've warned us..."
With that thought, he leaned out from his little shelter toward the girls nearby,
—"...He still hasn't answered.", a trace of fear lingered in his eyes.
Ragatha remained silent for a long moment before speaking, —"...You know... we wouldn't have been able to reach his Office using the cube collision anyway."
She hesitated, almost afraid to voice her own conclusion, —"...Everything we did back then... was staged by chained as part of his adventure."
She shrank into herself uncertainly, watching everyone's reaction. Her reasoning sounded painfully logical.
—"...Did he...", Gangle mumbled, —"...D-did he ever tell us h-how to reach his Office?"
Kinger immediately shook his head, resting a hand beneath his chin, —"...No... b-dut Ragatha... your conclusion makes sense."
He searched for another possibility, —"...This is all... strange.", he sighed, —"...I'm afraid... we'll have to figure this out ourselves... or we've already lost."
The others immediately understood what he meant. This could all be part of Abel's plan. They might be walking straight into a trap.
—"...So...", Pomni finally spoke, —"...We mistook his help... for one of the world's rules?..."
Kinger nodded, —"...When in reality...", he finished almost in a whisper, —"...it was only his preparation."
Gangle slowly raised her head, squinting as she stared upward into the Circus. The others assumed she was looking for Abel.
—"...Gangle?", Pomni called.
The girl lowered her head again, frowning, —"...D-do you feel that?"
Everyone looked at her in confusion. Something had changed.
—"...It's... too quiet. I-I'm scared.", she glanced nervously around.
The lights around them began to dim. First the distant lamps high above rapidly winked out. Then another, then another. The darkness crept steadily closer to their shelter.
The final lamp above them flickered three times— and died. The already dim tent was swallowed by darkness. Everyone instinctively shifted into a defensive stance. They had no idea what was coming... or from where.
Pomni instantly grabbed Ragatha's hand. Zooble instinctively stepped backward. Gangle let out a quiet yelp. Kinger searched the darkness for any sign of danger.
Then— a metallic click echoed somewhere above them. A second later... the blue sphere appeared overhead.
All of them flinched. Cold blue light washed over their frightened, angry faces. It almost seemed to enjoy having every pair of eyes fixed solely upon it.
But the voice... the voice was different. Not calm, not detached. For the first time... there was irritation. And something else... mockery.
"You found the first warning... insufficient."
Its glow intensified with every word.
"...to understand what happens..." "...to those..." "...who continue to resist."
The unfamiliar arrogance in its voice drew them even closer together. None of them took their eyes off the sphere above.
Suddenly, the floor beneath them began to crack, leaving the terrified group stranded on a tiny island and forcing them even closer together.
The fractures closed into a jagged ring around them. The section of floor beneath their feet remained intact.
Everything else... began to disappear. Not collapse, disappear. As though Abel had simply selected the surrounding world with a delete tool.
The floor dissolved into millions of tiny polygons, the walls crumbled into digital dust, the columns unraveled into transparent wireframes. Within seconds, nothing remained around their little island except an endless black void.
The blue sphere above them continued to watch in silence. An aura of concealed malice and quiet arrogance radiated from it.
Frightened, Kinger instinctively caught Gangle and Pomni with his floating hands. The girls pressed themselves tightly against him. Zooble wrapped her arms around Ragatha, shielding the others with her own body.
—"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!!", the old man suddenly shouted, glaring up at Abel with genuine fury.
The space around them seemed to stabilize. The terrifying sensation of standing in empty nothingness faded.
Yet none of them dared move even a single inch. Somewhere in the distance... a lone metallic click echoed.
As if someone had switched on a spotlight. A thin beam of light appeared in the endless darkness. It widened, it grew brighter. Until it finally illuminated... a blood-soaked checkered floor.
An enormous chain, smeared with blood, dragged slowly across the ground. The spotlight followed it. Then one after another, dozens of blinding white beams crossed in the center of the stage, turning it into a grotesque display.
A showcase. Presenting the night's main exhibit.
A massive body lay motionless upon the cold floor... like a collapsed building. His six once-powerful arms weren't merely restrained. Their joints had been twisted into impossible angles.
Several remained visibly dislocated after countless wrenching pulls. His entire back had become one endless mass of torn flesh. It was impossible to tell where one wound ended and the next began.
Deep lashes carved by the whip crossed each other dozens of times, forming ragged trenches from which thick, almost black blood slowly flowed.
In places, the skin had been stripped away entirely, revealing not muscle... but trembling fragments of shattered digital flesh.
The broken polygons flickered violently, trying to reconstruct themselves before collapsing once more into crimson glitches.
Every breath sent a faint tremor through his entire body. As though breathing itself had become agony. A vast pool of smeared blood had collected beneath his torso.
Dark blood spread across the floor, filling the deep cracks that now covered almost the entire stage.
Thin streams continued to seep from between his sealed metal jaws, dripping onto the floor with a dull... steady sound.
One of his lower hands was clenched so tightly that its claws had pierced completely through its own palm. Blood trickled slowly between his fingers. He didn't seem to notice.
In fact... he barely seemed to notice anything anymore. His colossal body no longer struggled against the chains.
It simply lay there... face down... defeated, exhausted, empty.
Only the occasional convulsion rippled across his shoulders. One of his six arms twitched involuntarily. A second later, a wave of digital interference crawled across his back.
Only then... did it become clear... that he was still alive.
The others froze where they stood. Everything they had meant to do, everything they had wanted to say vanished instantly.
The air itself seemed to thicken into something cold and heavy that refused to enter their lungs. Their hearts pounded somewhere inside their throats. Their legs no longer felt like their own.
No one could take a step, no one could force out a single word. Their jaws had locked shut. They simply stared... unable to believe the nightmare before them.
Click. The spotlight shifted. Now it fell directly upon them.
This wasn't the Cain they remembered. What lay before them was living proof of just how far Abel was willing to go.
Gangle's knees buckled, —"N-no..."
She barely managed to cover her mouth with both hands before a broken sob escaped her chest. Tears streamed down her porcelain face, slipping from her chin and quietly splashing against the checkered floor.
Hearing her... Cain tried to lift his head. Only a few centimeters. The muscles in his neck trembled instantly. The chains groaned under the strain. A heartbeat later... his head collapsed back onto the blood-covered floor. He no longer possessed the strength for even that.
Zooble tried to step forward. Her knees gave out beneath her. She barely caught herself, desperately clutching at her own arms as though they were the only thing keeping her upright.
Pomni didn't blink. Tears ran silently down her face. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders, as though trying to keep her own body from falling apart. She looked only at Cain, she couldn't tear her eyes away.
Again, and again, his final words echoed inside her mind.
"Don't let him decide."
Only now... did she finally understand, why he had fought so desperately to stop them back then.
Ragatha covered her mouth with one hand. Not to hold back her tears. She was trying not to be sick. Her eyes remained fixed on the blood-soaked lashes crossing Cain's back. She tried to count them, she couldn't.
Inside Kinger, panic burned. Raw, primal. The kind of terror he had never experienced while his mind had been safely hidden behind madness... or the mask of a confident leader. His floating white gloves slowly fell limp.
Cain could hear them, he could feel them nearby. So close... yet impossibly far beyond his reach.
Once more, he tried to lift his head from the floor. He managed barely five seconds. Then it dropped back down.
...
—"...Cain...", Kinger's voice was barely audible as he took a step forward.
Abel didn't move. The blue sphere simply descended lower... deliberately placing itself between them.
"He disrupted system operation."
...
"He endangered the other subjects."
...
"He refused to stop." "This is the expected outcome."
—"YOU'RE A GODDAMN TORTURER!!"
Pomni screamed hoarsely, wiping tears from her face.
—"YOU DID THIS BECAUSE YOU ENJOY IT!! YOU ENJOY MAKING PEOPLE SUFFER!!"
Her entire body trembled as she continued hurling insults at him. Beside her, Gangle quietly sobbed, shrinking in on herself between Pomni's desperate screams... and Abel's terrifying silence above.
— "Why are you doing this?! What is all of this for?!"
For the first time... Kinger shouted. He threw his hands upward, glaring accusingly at the sphere as he stepped toward it.
Even Cain flinched. It was the first time he had ever heard genuine anger from him. He slowly turned his head, struggling to focus.
—"Are you trying to prove your superiority?!", his painted eyebrows drew sharply over eyes reddened with rage, —"Absolute power doesn't need performances like this!"
...
—"If you were truly confident in yourself... you would've never brought us here!!"
An oppressive sensation settled over them. It felt as though that featureless object was staring directly into every person who dared raise their voice.
—"...You wanted us to see this.", his hands clenched into fists so tightly they creaked, —"...You wanted our reaction."
A quiet hum began emanating from the blue sphere. Abel's flawless shape trembled almost imperceptibly, vibrating with restrained fury as though mocking the one who had dared accuse him.
He was terrifyingly silent. The pressure surrounding him thickened until it became something tangible— Oppressive hatred, contempt, disgust.
"Interesting..."
His voice dropped lower. Colder.
"You accuse me..."
...
"...while your very existence..."
"...is possible only because of my intervention."
...
Silence didn't merely fall. It hung over them... like an invisible concrete slab.
The hands that had been gesturing furiously only a second earlier froze in midair. Someone remained standing with their mouth still open, never finishing the next insult.
The group stood motionless... staring blankly ahead... desperately trying to comprehend what they had just heard.
Kinger looked at Abel... but didn't truly see him. His mind replayed those words again, and again. He stood utterly hollow, his eyes had gone distant.
Empty. Trying desperately to grasp the monstrous meaning behind them... without the slightest idea how he was supposed to react.
Cain jerked ever so slightly. A wave of cold swept through his body. He understood. Panic surged through him.
"No... No, no... don't you dare"
...
—"...What do you mean?" Kinger frowned.
"You truly don't understand?"
Abel slowly turned, focusing entirely on him.
"When I first found you..." "...you were falling apart."
A chain clinked somewhere in the distance. Cain struggled to push himself up.
"Your mind was destroying itself..." "...you lived through the same day..."
...
"Again."
...
"And again."
...
"Each time losing the man..."
...
"...you became in the dark."
—"MMGHMMGH!!!!"
The giant forced all six hands against the blood-soaked floor. His muscles screamed before he could. The chains pulled taut. Pain exploded through his shoulders. Still... he kept trying to rise.
—"MMGH...!", a muffled, choking cry burst from behind his sealed jaws. His entire body trembled. For a moment... he almost held himself up.
His right arm gave out first, then the left.He crashed heavily back onto the floor. A heartbeat later... he tried to rise again.
"Don't believe him... please... let me explain..."
"He did nothing."
Everyone turned toward the panicking Cain. Anger, confusion. An unbearable sense of betrayal filled their hearts
"So... he could've done something...", they looked at him with disbelief... and disappointment.
"And I did."
Distrust seeped beneath their skin like icy sweat. They had believed him. They had agreed to put aside old grudges... to step over years of resentment, for this alliance with Cain.
—"MMMMGH!!"
Chained could feel every pair of eyes fixed on him. Every tear, every doubt.
"No...", his heart seemed to sink into nothingness, "Not this..."
He had seen those looks before... the first time he lost control. The first time he stopped being their Cain, "Not again... please... not again..."
The blue sphere slowly descended a little lower. For the first time in a very long while... its voice no longer carried that familiar, detached indifference.
"I must hand it to you, Gran. Your mind was always resourceful."
Kinger froze. The words struck somewhere impossibly deep. Not because he understood them... but because... they felt terrifyingly familiar.
As if someone had already spoken them to him... a very long time ago. Almost instinctively, he pressed a hand against his temple.
—"...What...", something flashed through his mind. A white monitor, lines of code, a hand resting on a keyboard. Then... it was gone, as though the memory itself had been frightened into hiding.
Now... no one trusted anyone. Not Abel... with his brutal truth. Nor the broken, pleading Cain.
—"...You're not even defending yourself.", Zooble finally spoke. Her voice came out hoarse, weakened by exhaustion, —"...You're bragging."
...
Kinger turned to look at his "greatest creation."
The chains rattled as Cain struggled to stay upright instead of collapsing back onto the floor. He was shouting something, desperately trying to get their attention.
—"MMMGH!!", he tried to reach toward them— but the chains stopped him. His arms were too weak to fight back.
Still kneeling, he desperately pushed against the crushing force while the chains dragged his arms backward, refusing to let him get any closer to the others.
The chess piece had no idea what he was supposed to feel anymore. He looked at Cain... as though seeing him for the very first time.
Quietly, he asked, —"...Is it true...?"
—"MMMGH!!", Cain lurched forward— until the chain around his neck violently jerked him back. And yet... his answer came seconds too late. Which meant...
"See?" "Even now..." "...he's incapable of explaining himself."
...
"I can."
—"B-but y-you're deliberately n-not letting him speak!", Ragatha's voice trembled as she desperately tried to defend Cain.
"His speech has not been restricted." "He is simply incapable of constructive conversation."
He had simply left him with a body... that was incapable of speaking.
The chess piece continued staring at the giant nearby, —"...I want to believe you."
...
—"...But right now..."
...
—"...I don't know how."
At that moment... Cain believed he had lost. He stopped struggling against the chains. Stopped trying to scream. Stopped trying to reach them. Now... he was left alone with what he believed was his own defeat.
Kinger slowly turned back toward Abel. Now... he had never felt so vulnerable, so abandoned. Not once in all his time inside the Circus.
—"...You...", he drew a shaky breath, —"...You helped me... because you pitied me? Or because..."
...
"...you wanted to be better than my first AI?"
Abel remained silent. That silence alone made everyone tense. Kinger immediately regretted asking.
Cain froze. His shoulders tightened as if struck by lightning, "No..."
Kinger had always represented a threat. He was the creator of both AI. He knew more than either of them wanted him to know. And now... that had become a critical problem.
"Your memories are highly contradictory." "The restored cognitive function has resulted in false causal associations."
Behind Kinger, the girls instinctively stepped backward as they felt Abel descending even closer.
—"Kinger!!!", Ragatha rushed toward him, grabbing his arm and pleading for him to back away before it was too late.
"Correction revoked."
Pomni understood the meaning first. Her eyes widened, —"...No..."
She took one tiny step forward. As though she were afraid of frightening time itself, —"...Wait..."
Abel didn't even acknowledge her.
Ragatha clung desperately to Kinger's arm, —"NO!!!!", she was already crying, —"...No... no, no..."
She understood perfectly. This wasn't a threat anymore. It was a decision.
For the first time in a long while, Zooble froze. She had no words. No time to process what was happening. She simply looked at Kinger, then sharply at Abel, back to Kinger. Then finally snapped.
—"STOP!!!", she stepped forward, —"He won't say anything else!!"
She began bargaining with him, —"You heard everything you wanted!! That's enough!!"
"Not enough."
—"Please!", Gangle cried out, her voice breaking as she rushed forward and wrapped the stunned man in a desperate hug.
—"I-i-i'm begging you!! Not him... p-please, not h-him!!"
The chess piece turned toward her in panic, then glanced back at the sobbing Ragatha. He had no idea what he was supposed to do, he was absolutely terrified.
He didn't know what came next. He didn't know what would happen... to any of them.
—"Gh— Gangle—", his words were cut off by hurried footsteps.
Cain struggled once more against the chains. This time he reached toward Abel himself, desperately trying to tell him something.
Abel merely turned his sphere slightly toward him... watching from above without a word.
Kinger instinctively stepped backward. One hand rose to shield his eyes. He squinted, lowering his head.
—"...It's... too bright.", he shrank further from the blinding light.
"No, no, no— Kinger!!", Ragatha hurried in front of him, grabbing both his shoulders and trying to shield him from the spotlight with her own body.
His breathing grew faster. He looked around... as though noticing for the very first time how many lights surrounded him. How much brightness, how much open space.
Then suddenly he clutched his head with his free hand. Not because his memories were disappearing. Because... his thoughts were beginning to fall apart.
The girls gathered around him, helplessly trying to shield him from the cursed spotlight overhead.
—"...No...", he shook his head, —"W-we were supposed to..."
He looked hopefully at Ragatha and Pomni, —"W-what... what were we talking about?"
Pomni let out another sob, bringing a trembling hand to her face. That only confused and frightened him even more.
—"W-why are you crying...?"
Zooble sharply looked away, squeezing her eyes shut. Then she spun back toward Abel.
—"You...", fear twisted across her face, —"...You knew."
...
"I observed signs of deviant behavior." "The cause of the deviation remains unknown."
Zooble's eyes widened. She flinched, "He doesn't know...?"
—"...No...", Ragatha grabbed the chess piece by both shoulders, —"Kinger! Look at me!"
—"...Rag...", a small smile appeared on his face. Then his attention wandered elsewhere. He noticed Abel's enormous floating sphere.
—"...Why do we have such a big billiard ball?", he asked with genuine curiosity. He stared upward, completely serious.
—"And... it doesn't even have a number."
Abel offered no reply. He simply looked back at him... with quiet pity... and unmistakable superiority.
Kinger shrank slightly. He couldn't understand why the girls around him looked so exhausted. So battered, why they were all crying.
He could feel that he'd forgotten something... something important. Standing there, he slowly turned in place, tilting his head with sincere confusion.
—"...Did something happen...?"
Cain's shoulders finally sagged.He folded forward, catching himself on his trembling hands before collapsing completely onto his stomach.
Physically... he no longer had the strength to resist.
"I wasn't fast enough..."
His fingers dug into the cold checkered floor. He could feel blood slowly running down his wrists, gathering into dark pools beneath his palms.
"If Abel knew... he wouldn't be wasting his attention on Kinger right now. He punished me... and punished Kinger... to frighten them."
His heart skipped a beat.
"...He doesn't know.", his fingers dug even deeper into the stone, —...He knows nothing.
—●-●-●-●-●—
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@katzebruh I'M SURE YOU LIKE IT!!!
Wooooell… that turned out fucking awesome! Honestly, I spent a long time thinking about how to handle Kinger’s moments of lucidity and Abel’s kindness toward him. So… I really hope you enjoyed it!! My fanfic had been missing scenes with Cain exactly like this one for a long time. And I hope you aren't too teary-eyed after this chapter… Anyway, everything will work out! The finale is coming soon!