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His mirror had made a fatal mistake, swinging too wide to parry Alfonse’s sword, and the opening was enough for his instincts to kick in.
Alfonse set his jaw. Kaleidoscopes overtook his vision, saturated green and gold and white blurred altogether into unintelligible geometry. What was left of his stun translated into adrenaline, into hope that this would be the end. His body pivoted on its heel on its own accord. A detached arm pointed the tip of Fólkvangr at the gold.
And then, his blade found its mark, sliding between the metal feathers of the other Alfonse’s armor. Rib and spine all shattered, torn into fragments by the twin sword. Blood from the chambers of his heart now spilling onto Alfonse’s trembling hands, as he finally saw what he was made of: torn flesh, stained armor, rusting crimson. Reality had yet to hit him as they both stood, frozen, two Alfonses witnessing each other as they stood at opposite borders of life and death.
“Alfonse,” he whispered. At the glass that greeted him, he tried again. “Alfonse.”
A gloved hand on his arm, its grip weak. Collapsing weight started to push against his unsteady stance. Alfonse couldn’t find it within him to look down, instead only ahead at the other’s face. There was some reassurance that within the empty stare, there was no fear residing within it, no sorrow, no regret — and then, frost ran up through Alfonse’s veins, starting right where his mirror was holding.
Gods. Alfonse’s bottom lip trembled before he bit it. What even was there? No joy, no surprise, no unresolved dreams that he yearned for. The most that he could see was a softness behind the blue, a comfort that he would die in his own arms. Was he really as brave as the other made him out to be?
When he spoke, his voice was steady. “I’m sorry. I did what I needed to do.”
The hand fell toward the ground, dribbling crimson on trampled grass; and Alfonse shut his eyes tightly, hoping to wash this all out of memory — before opening them to the labyrinth of the colosseum, still towering atop his small figure. Dread flooded his veins, finding home as it burrowed with a dulled pain into his gut. He was still… here?
A look down at his hands, and they were already cleaned as if nothing had ever occurred. His sword still remained in its cover. For a moment, he was able to believe that the death was all a mere illusion, if not for the twinkling laughter that graced the air. Sharp chills ran down his spine, and he felt anger rise in a bright flush at the cruelty of the game he had been placed in — with seemingly no escape. Unsheathing his sword, he pivoted on his heel and pointed it at the familiar goddess it stemmed from.
Purple eyes widened in falsified surprise. Alfonse gritted his teeth further, blade steady as it pointed at its target. It was silent for fleeting moments before she broke out into a faint smile, mirthless in its emptiness.
“You really would do anything for your people,” she mused, “dear prince.”
He would kill her himself, with his own hands. “You said it yourself, Loki. It was his Askr or mine — now, let me go.”
“Oh, that’s not under my control.” Her maintained smile, the illusion of responsibility being off her hands sickened Alfonse. She leaned backwards, resting her weight against empty air before stretching as if she was a lounging cat. “The Arena clearly is dissatisfied with your kill. Your tier is not high enough to warrant escape; you must earn it to ensure your kingdom’s protection.”
“Wrong. I know this is your doing.” Desperation cracked his voice. “You were the one to bring me here.”
“I merely made a suggestion based on what I observed from the other worlds — that the most peaceful kingdoms were the ones that ensured their protection through this.” A gesture at the space. “You were the one who decided to come of your own will. The Arena is not run by my magic. But if it helps you feel better, from what I’m seeing,” she leaned in closer, mouth pushed up mere millimeters away from the blade, “you are my favorite Alfonse of the bunch. Probably the strongest, too.”
The absurdity of Loki’s sentence forced Alfonse’s hand to falter briefly, before regaining its strength from the shock. There was something stirring within his chest: indignation and hatred for the goddess — but also fear at how she stood unfazed by his threat of attack, with her face nearly up against the sharp edge of Fólkvangr. Sand swept under his feet, blooming into a cloud of dust that blurred his vision; the whistle of wind against his ear was sharp, overwhelming.
“Your favorite Alfonse,” he murmured, “of the bunch?”
Her smile widened in response. She pushed his blade up with a gentle finger; pressed a kiss to the underside; and then disappeared into the silence of the colosseum.
In her place now stood another copy of him, and Alfonse felt his own humanity crumble.
The second Alfonse was different. No beginner mistakes; more care and caution and discipline, developed only through combat experience that he must have had more of than the first, graced each swing of his sword.
They still died with similar demeanors, Alfonse noted, as he struggled to withhold his own nausea. This time, it was a sword buried in the gut that killed the other. Alfonse shook as he felt an unsteady hand grip his wrist — again… again? — and watched as all life drained out of the other’s eyes. His own body shook: perhaps from the adrenaline, perhaps from the sorrow, perhaps from how uncanny it was to watch himself die.
The other mirror didn’t say anything, but Alfonse shushed anyway to quell his own growing despair. What would he want to hear in death? What comfort could he provide to himself, of all people? “You’ll be alright,” he whispered, words unsteady. “You’ve done what you could. You’ll rest well, Alfonse — won’t you?”
He blinked. When he opened his eyes again, there stood another Alfonse, alive and well.
At some point, does it become routine to kill copies of yourself — or can it ever be? Does the pain and shock associated with watching yourself die eventually dull out? Does the guilt associated with putting those other worlds into ruin eventually fade into nothing?
At what point does it no longer become worth it to continue fighting?
Alfonse didn’t know how to answer himself. The longer he stewed in his questions, the more difficult he found for his limbs to maintain the force on his weapon. Grounding himself in the reminder that he, too, was fighting for his own life, he steadied his own sword. He shivered as he took a long breath, unsuccessfully clearing his mind of convoluted thought. At the sight of the next body, he didn’t bother to give his other self a chance to process, instead charging headfirst with a hoarse yell.
Himself or the other. His Askr or theirs. These answers were easier than the others. Even as exhaustion had started to seep into his tearing muscle, Alfonse mustered the strength to continue going.
Kills, messier. Injuries, a mixture of his own and the other’s. And each and every time, without fail, the other Alfonse died with all thought concealed within the navy abyss, as if the Alfonses still needed to hide their own truths when all they faced was himself. There was something maddening about that, the more Alfonse thought about it: how were they all unafraid of death? Did they not hold the burden of Askr’s future on their shoulders, as he did?
This Alfonse had collapsed after a particularly draining wound; there was little movement left within his doomed corpse, but enough for Alfonse to know that he was still alive. Wiping the dribble of blood from his own mouth, he limped over to the body, trailing scarlet behind his dragged leg. The wound on his calf should have been searing; it probably would have been, had the endless adrenaline not dulled out anything human he should have felt.
His weight collapsed onto his knees. A hand reached for the other man’s scarf, pulling him upwards. The copy’s head rolled back, too heavy for him to hold up; and that was the only grace that Alfonse was willing to provide, lifting it up on the other’s behalf.
Alfonse panted. The other Alfonse had surprise flicker across his eyes before shutting them.
“Tell me, Alfonse.” The words huffed hot air into the fallen Alfonse’s face. “Do you die with regret?”
In the face decorated with black and blue, in the face that had forced the illusion of peace, there was finally a foreign force that graced his expression: the slightest furrowing of his brows as his lips parted. His posture tightened in Alfonse’s hold, muscles all taut as an entire lifetime must have crossed his darkening vision: thoughts of family, of friends, of a kingdom that would now be left at the hands of cruel gods.
Alfonse shook the stiffening body. “Alfonse.” At the stillness, he put more force into his movement, letting the head fall back toward the dirt — golden strands swayed side to side as the body’s head rolled back and forth and back and forth and back—
“Answer me!”
Then, he shut his eyes, and opened them again to clean hands.
Again. Again. Again, and again, and again, and again.
Again. Alfonse cradled the draining heart in his hands, a sharp pain in his own throat as he struggled to squeak his plea out. “What can I do to save your world from doom?” The other Alfonse seemed to laugh at the question, although he couldn’t tell what exactly it was for: the oddity of the situation they had found themselves in, or from the naiveté that laced Alfonse’s meek voice. Perhaps both, Alfonse thought, but there was no concrete answer before death claimed the man.
Again. And again. And Alfonse looked down at his own shoes and saw permanent rust on his boots, the stain of blood no longer able to rid itself from his vision. He would shut his eyes and see the wash of red. He would scream into the thickened air and hear nothing but static reach his mind.
If he forced his eyes to remain permanently open, would he be allowed to leave? He contemplated it for moments longer than he should have. When the next Alfonse died, he dropped his sword and held his own lids open; he let them water as he wandered around the Arena grounds, searching for a door that would bring him back to safety. Rushed, frantic steps pattered along the floor as he ran — and then, his own body was no longer able to resist his dried eyes begging for relief.
A blink on accident, and then again.
Again. “Do you die with failure lingering in your mind?” At that, he saw it: resentment as the other Alfonse’s eyes shot open, the whites stained with red. This Alfonse died with them staying open. The death rattle of this Alfonse stifled the venom he was preparing to spit, leaving these sentiments permanently trapped in his soul.
He threw his sword to the side when the next one fell: it was a wound too fatal to warrant conversation. Gloves covered in his own blood — the other’s, right? — he looked up at the pristine blue skies and felt bile slick his tongue. “Loki!” he called. “The end must be near, correct?”
No response was response enough, and Alfonse shut his eyes.
Again. And again, and again, and again, until the haze of killing had started to be strong enough to wash out his guilt. His shield slammed into the next mirror, knocking him to the ground. It was all the same. The unreadability, the hiding, the need to stay strong when all was clearly bleak around them — when would these Alfonses all realize that there was nothing to fight for?
“You failed Askr,” Alfonse spat. “You will never be good enough to be king.”
The other sat up, struggling through the tremor in their core. It was visible anger that rose in their eyes as they connected — like looking through a mirror. “We are the same. Do you think you are deserving of the throne?”
He had already raised his sword, preparing for the final blow. There was nothing that stopped him from bringing it down on the copy, the irrelevant, even if it left behind a searing memory of those words.
We are the same.
He turned to the side and heaved.
“Prince Alfonse!” The sound of singular applause, slow and delicate. “You’ve made it. I knew you had it within you all along — your strength rivals all, truly. Your Askr sits in such comfortable hands.”
His hands rested on the fresh body ahead of him, still hot to the touch. Loki’s voice could not cut through the storm within his mind; what should have been relief coursing through him was instead animal, instead blood that should no longer be red. Fingernails dug into the other’s armor, leaving marks of dulling scarlet, stark against gold.
A touch, gentle on his shoulder; undeserved, for someone who no longer carried his soul. “Go home, my prince — the same way you’ve travelled here. Your kingdom awaits you with open arms. The Arena will grace you with protection as your rightful reward, so don’t even worry about anything beyond rest.”
He couldn’t bring himself to close his eyes. What was there to go home to?
“Until next time!” Like song; as if this was all play; as if this was all a mere dream. “I’ll be seeing you soon, dear. Won’t I?”
No. The word clawed its way up his tract, catching itself in the back of his throat. His shoulders shook as he hunched himself further, curling into the body — curling into himself, because they were all the same. He had demonstrated what his own hands were capable of: cruelty and violence beyond his own imagination. He had proven that no iteration of himself, regardless of their path, was capable of claiming the throne.
Askr would have no king, he resolved. He did not deserve the kingdom’s faith.
“Alfonse?”
Zacharias’s voice forced something visceral to emerge within him. Pupils retreated within the safety of trembling irises as his body was pulled into a tight embrace. He heard speech, words — gone for a long time, you okay, happened to you — and couldn’t find it within him to even weep in response.
He needed to run. The craving itched in his heart, a sharp pang that screamed and pleaded for him to leave. But he would take the little comforts; he would stew in silence under these warm arms; and he would grace himself with one more memory of being human before he abandoned it all.