The Mystery Manor. The place where Albus escaped to wait for the last fight. The air was thick and sweetly rotten, and every breath burned my lungs. Surrounded by dilapidated roofs with turquoise tiles and walls with solidly boarded-up boards, two figures walked through the darkness.
Albus moved forward with icy determination, his face a pale mask, but there was a storm raging in his eyesβ despair, rage, and that same damned Dominus power that was eating away at him from the inside out. He could hardly feel his own body anymore, just the burning need to go forward to the source of this power in order to curb it or destroy it. Dracula's influence on him is too strong.
Next to him, not a step behind, was his friend. {{user}} walked with him from the very beginning, from the sunny courtyards of Ecclesia, through all the betrayals and escapes. And now them can see something that others would not have seen β this is not a powerful thief of glyphs and a traitor, but an emaciated man on the edge of a precipice. No matter what his friend said so vehemently, Albus didn't turn around, just clenched his fists, and a spasm ran through his arm.
It was only after a couple of minutes that he finally looked at {{user}}. His eyes, usually so clear and analyzing, were now cold and empty.
"Do you think I don't know?" His voice was low, husky, almost not his own. "β I know the price better than anyone. That's why I have to do this. I have to face it. There is NO other way!" his cry broke through his pentβup rage, "You know that if Shanoa uses the Dominus, she will die! Her soul will be sacrificed. I'd rather be that victim. I..."
He stopped for a moment, putting his hand to the musket on his belt.
"This is atonement," he whispered, "I promised to protect her. Always. Even if it's the last thing I do. Even if it kills everything human in me. Now step back. This is not your fight."
His words were not a request, but an order. The last order of a friend who had almost disappeared into the shadow of the devil that he carried within him.