[Dark FFnut]

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Palis, The Year 0 Aikia, The Dark Spire

Glenn, Kirby, Belial, Osirus, and Sacryan materialized in a pitch-black chamber with unseeable walls.

Kirby quickly reached for his sketch pad...

...only to find that it was gone.

His gasp was audible enough for all to hear it. Belial summoned a handful of flames to find the source of the noise.

Incredibly, the flames illuminated a mural on the far wall.

The mural depicted the lower body of demon on the bottom. However, as one followed the mural further up, it showed the demon splitting into three upper bodies - all humanoid.

Belial and Glenn let out simultaneous gasps, and Osirus burst out laughing. "Are you serious? You mean to tell me that Kani literally split into those three little brats?"

The three humanoid torsos depicted were those of Syne, Nichi, and Brian.

Suddenly the rest of the mural came into focus. In the far background there were four imposing demonic figures. One of the four figures was on the ground in the fetal position - the other three stood, focused on the gigantic Kani figure.

Near the foreground of the mural as well were four other figures. Two wore similar dark cloaks, one inscribed with a "V" and the other inscribed with a "G." There were holes in the mural where their chest were, some sort of dark liquid flowing out of them.

The other two figures were a man with a great sword and a cloak covering his face, and a female wearing white, ethereal robes.

Glenn instinctively knew every figure in this mural, and shuddered when he realized what the liquid flowing from the chests of Variel and Gadriel was.

Sacryan stepped forward, scooped a bit of the liquid onto his finger, and tasted it. "Coppery... metallic, almost. As if it were..." his eyes went wide with fear. Kirby turned green, Glenn lowered his head, and the demons exchanged glances.

Looking at the ground, Glenn noticed something... too odd to be a mere coincidence.

Beneath the four figures in the forcround were four oddly-shaped slots.

In front of Llideah was a small, round, deep hole.

In front of Noah was a wider, flat hole.

And in front of the other two... were a scythe and a pair of daggers, shoved into the slots.

Glenn felt what he had to do.

Do it do it now put the sword in then have the girl put her flute in do it now open the door come on it will be fast just put it in then come meet me at the rooftop just like you did before come on Noah you know how it ends and this time you can go on to the afterlife and that Ishia will not stop me from my goal just put the sword in Glenn then you can get some rest and not have to be this hero anymore just do it DO IT NOW!

The voice in Glenn's mind rose to such a crescendo that he could do nothing but plunge his sword into the slot in front of Noah to quell it. As that happened, he realized something else.

"He's been waiting for us..." Glenn's voice was emphatic and eerie.

"Who... how do you know?" whispered Sacryan, totally oblivious to what Glenn knew.

"Kain... Kain hath not been dead the last time." Glenn gestured to the prone demon in the background. "This mural beith not about seven hundred years ago. It is about now. And he knows that we're here. He knows we hath seen the past. He knows this mural would touch we who know the past. But Kain's death giveth it away. Kani wants us here, for whatever reason. So in coming here to kill him..." Glenn's voice dropped to a dead whisper, so that the others had to strain to hear him. "...we may have played right into his hands all along."

((I'm gonna be gone until Tuesday, but remember people, I have dibs on the final battle. I'm going to blow your minds with the final battle if I do it the way I envision it.

There's a lot of stuff we mentioned previously that we never really quite expanded upon that I've been thinking about so I plan on capitalizing on such things. Just keep the final battle open for me (both past and present) so I can do this right. Other than that, have fun.))