BXBX NOVEL Chapter 93 93 - The Past That Reunites The Present
"You wanna kill me, right?" Throwing his arms wide open, Haruki\'s lips crescented into a mocking smirk. "Go ahead and try!"
Irking Rose further, he was prepared to take on even the most lethal attacks. Enraged by his mocking tone, Rose pushed further and punched him right through the guts. Tearing through his body, her hand came out bloodied on the other end.
"If you say so," she mumbled before turning his body into a flaming inferno.
"Ahaha!" The sound of laughter left Rose aghast.
\'Let\'s see how accurate your foresight is, Margarette.\' Held up in her hands, Haruki glanced down at Roselia with blood dripping out of his mouth. The sight, for the very first time, triggered her instincts to get as far away from him as possible.
"Why…." She asked, trying to draw her hand out of his burning body.
However, grabbing her arm to keep it in place, Haruki let out yet another laugh in his maniacal frenzy.
"Why? You\'ll know soon," Having drawn enough mana out of her attack, he glared into her soul right through her eyes. "In through the looking glass!"
Following the activation of the skill, they were both stripped of all mana in their bodies and their eyes lost their light. Falling onto each other the flames on their bodies died down in an instant. Onlooking the whole thing, Riley crawled her way to check up on the two.
"I hope you can survive that hell," taking a hold of Haruki\'s hand, she began to check for a pulse. To her surprise, there was nothing to be felt. "What the hell did you do?"
Even though Haruki was following her instruction, lacking knowledge about Asmodia\'s abilities, Riley couldn\'t help worrying about what exactly was happening.
\'Just don\'t mess up now!\' With a groan coming from Asuka, she turned around to help the other two.
***
Falling through dark ash heavy clouds, Haruki landed face-first onto Roselia\'s back. The fall had felt like an eternity, the both of them were too light-headed to quarrel over anything at the moment. Being pushed away from her butt, Haruki felt deep warmth crawling from the earth and traveling throughout his body.
"Where are we?" Asked Roselia, already back on her feet and looking around. "Wait…this can\'t be!"
Recognizing the burning earth under her feet as well as the numerous volcanoes around the terrain seeping out magma, Rose knew exactly where she was.
"It\'s your memories…" Replied Haruki, getting up on his feet as well. "Apparently seeing each other\'s past will end this quarrel."
\'According to Margarette at least.\' Watching Rose\'s hair fuming up once more, a sense of caution took over Haruki\'s body.
"Why the hell would you bring me here?!" Turning around, Rose tried to leap at him, however, held back by countless invisible arms she couldn\'t lay so much a finger on his skin.
"It would be a short trip if you could just kill me here, wouldn\'t it?" letting out a nervous chuckle, Haruki glanced around to place himself.
Surrounded by volcanoes upon volcanoes, they were both boxed into a forever-stretching stream of molten lava. Although, he knew he\'d never been to this place, and yet for some obscure reason it felt strangely familiar.
"What is this place?" Haruki asked the growling dragoness.
"The very land you rule, you accused Frost!" She answered as her futile grunting slowly died down. "It\'s my home, and the land your ancestor took away from us."
Haruki couldn\'t believe his ears, to think that the tundra surrounding Laria was once a scorching land of fire? It hardly felt plausible, and yet as he took flight to get a better look at the terrain, the image of the current-day Laria fitted right in. Getting back down to the earth-bound Rose, he turned to her to make one correction in her presumption however.
"I\'m no Frost, Rose," assuming she thought that Snow had been forcefully turned into an incubus, instead of being replaced altogether, Haruki decided to clear the air between them.
"Your excuses won\'t work on me, I\'m gonna kill you and this stupid curse!" Once again being held back in place, she tried to bite off Haruki\'s nose but missed by a few inches. "Let go of me you coward! Fight me! I\'ll burn you alive!"
Even if he wanted to let her off, the effect of the spell disallowed either of them to assault each other. And the only way to escape this prison of memories was to stroll down each other\'s path and learn more about the other person.
"I consumed Snow\'s soul a long time ago, there might be some part of him still left inside me that\'s keeping your curse held together," lacking any real way to prove his theory he could only expect her to trust him for the moment.
"You\'re lying! I do not bel-" Snapping his fingers like Moriyana, Haruki changed the scenery to when he visited Snow\'s real self forcing himself on Asuka.
Her eyes widened in shock, glared at the ghastly sight of Snow forcing himself on Asuka\'s unconscious body. Bit by bit everything that followed the event kept unfolding, making Rose question everything about what she thought of Snow.
"This is a trick! There\'s no way young master would do such a thing!" Once again growling at Haruki, she stomped her feet in an attempt to shatter the floor beneath them but being in an illusion nothing really happened.
"If I am Snow, and I\'m keeping you hostage with whatever curse you speak of…" Taking hold of her face between his palms, Haruki took deep breaths reminding her to calm down as well. "Then why would I show you that I, Snow Frost assaulted his own maid?"
Stumbled by the question, Rose was left without words. Her mind raced to find why Snow would purposefully portray himself as a ghastly pervert, but no matter how far and wide she searched there was truly no answer.
"What are you then?" She asked, loosening her body.
Letting go of her body, the invisible arms no longer tried to restrain her in any way.
"I\'ll show you, but I need to know who you are too," stretching his hand towards her, Haruki offered her a handshake. "And if I\'m right then maybe I can help you get rid of the curse without killing me or any of my servants."
Staring at his hands, Rose knew she\'d be entering another covenant if she shakes her hand with a demon, but the prospect of freedom and potentially saving her brother was not something she could refuse.
"I\'ll eat you alive if you try to trick me," shaking his hand, she agreed to the deal.