She was falling straight down through an endless cosmic space. Bright stars surrounded her on all sides, scattered across the darkness in clusters so dense they blurred together at the edges.
The cold had started at her fingertips and worked inward, crawling up her arms and settling deep into her chest until every breath she exhaled turned to white mist that disappeared into the dark void. She shivered, her white hair floating around her face as she continued to fall with no sign of anything below.
Hours had passed, maybe even days. She had lost the concept of time entirely as she kept drifting in this imaginary space.
Then a sudden gust of wind pulled her downward at an incredible speed, her body flailing against the force. And the bottom she had been yearning for had finally arrived all at once.
She crashed into a pale white surface with an impact so violent that the force sent wild winds tearing outward in every direction. The shockwave rolled outward and faded into nothing.
She stayed still for a moment, face down against the surface, then slowly pushed herself up. White tiles stretched in every direction, fading into nothing at the horizon no matter which way she looked. She rose to her feet and lifted her gaze.
Above her was the same cosmic space she had just fallen through, stars burning yellow and blue in every direction. The cosmic sky and the white tiles beneath her felt like two separate worlds forced together, close enough to see each other but never able to collide.
Conquest turned her head, taking in the space around her.
She had been here before.
The thought stayed with her for a while, until something caught her eye. A small white table and a fancy, equally pale chair sat alone in the open space. She recognized them immediately, the same ones Pestilence had been sitting in when they last spoke.
She walked toward the table, her footsteps making no sound against the tiles. When she reached it, a single question formed in the back of her mind.
Had Pestilence abandoned her? The thought alone had made her jaw tighten. The fight against Death had been lost. He had torn her apart on that battlefield, severed her limbs and left her bleeding in the dirt. However, she was in her Pale Kingdom, the one forged from her own mind, and if her old memories were anything to go by, that meant she had survived somehow.
In any case, regardless of what had happened to Death, Pestilence must have gotten involved after she had lost consciousness. That would explain why she was no longer inside the Pale Kingdom.
Conquest suddenly remembered the contract she had made with Pestilence.
If her memory from back then served her right, contracts made between beings of the unseen realm had to be fulfilled. If left unfulfilled after ten months, the one who failed to honor it would be chained in Purgatory for an eternity.
Eventually, Pestilence would have to return from wherever she had gone, or she would bear those consequences herself.
She had so many questions floating in her mind that she needed immediate clarity. For one, how could she possibly get to Purgatory? Could Kenji still be saved after his soul had turned into a cursed spirit? And what about her parents? Were they still waiting for her after she had promised to visit them at the hospital?
She didn't need Pestilence for that last one. But it gnawed at her all the same. This was the second time she had abandoned them, and unlike the first, this time it hadn't been her choice.
These were just a few of her many questions that Pestilence needed to answer.
She pulled the chair out and sat down, her hands resting on the table in front of her as her eyes drifted upward toward the stars above.
She pressed her fingers against the table and studied the space around her. Then a memory arrived.
***
Death's dual scythes cutting through the air. Her right forearm falling away from her body. The ground rushed up to meet her as she lost consciousness mid-air, her body carving a crater into the scorched earth below.
And his voice, calm and almost bored, as he looked down at her broken form.
"You see, no Horseman is actually born a Horseman. The Sovereign makes that decision."
She pressed both hands flat against the table, breathing hard. Her fingers trembled against the surface.
"The reason your strength is failing is because you're a human Horseman. Humans were never meant to hold a Horseman's mana."
She gritted her teeth.
"Eventually it cracks, like blood forced into veins too small to carry it."
***
She slammed her fist into the table. A crack split outward from the impact, running across the surface. The silence after it was worse than the memory.
She sat back and stared at the crack, chest rising and falling. Then she remembered a line Death had said to her.
"I live the way the Sovereign made me, as a demon, as the Sin of Greed, a mantle bestowed upon me without choice, and I move through existence according to that design."
She shook her head.
He had said it without shame. As if following his function was simply the most honest thing a being could do.
She stayed with that thought longer than she wanted to.
Then the question formed on its own, rising from somewhere between the two sets of memories competing inside her head.
Am I following my function?
She closed her eyes.
When she tried to answer, two voices responded at the same time.
One said: I am the Ruler of All. My function is to conquer. To claim. To decree that every soul imprisoned in Purgatory will be freed without exception.
The other said: I just want Kenji and Riko back. I want to drag them both to that cat cafe downtown even though they're both allergic to cats. I want to watch Riko sneeze her way through it while Kenji pretends he's fine with his watery eyes. I want to walk into my parents' hospital room and keep the promise I made to them.
She opened her eyes.
The crack in the table had spread further while she wasn't looking, branching outward in thin jagged lines.
Who am I?
She had the memories of a girl who talked to dolls because the silence in her house was unbearable. But she also had fragmented memories of a Horseman.
She had the guilt of a daughter who let her parents rot in a dark room. While she had the fury of a Horseman who had been manipulated into her own destruction by a demon wearing borrowed power.
Both sets of memories belonged to her, but neither felt like her true self.
She brought her hand to her chest, fingers pressing against the spot where her Deathmark used to be.
"Conquest, Ruler of All. Or Yuki Ayano, The Human. Which one am I?"
She exhaled slowly, eyes drifting back to the empty chair across from her where Pestilence had once sat.
Then a voice shook the Pale Kingdom from above.
It was deep, the table beneath her fingers vibrated and the chair rattled against the tiles. Cracks split across the floor in every direction, spreading faster than she could track.
"So, this is where you were hiding, Conquest, Ruler of All?"
She shot to her feet. The chair toppled behind her as her eyes searched the cosmic sky above. She had heard this voice before. She was certain of it. But the memory refused to surface, buried somewhere beneath the fragmented memories that still had not pieced themselves together.
"Who are you?" she called out. "How did you get in here? This place cannot be entered without my permission!"
The stars above her began to rupture, each one bursting one after the other, their light dying in quick flashes that left nothing behind.
Beneath her feet, the white tiles started to break apart, snapping off one by one and tumbling into a black void that had opened up below.
"You do not recognize me. How unfortunate."
The voice paused.
"Very well. Allow me to refresh your memory."
Conquest looked down. The tile beneath her feet cracked. She jumped before it fell to the void and launched herself upward into the collapsing cosmic space.
But as she rose, the remaining stars began to pull toward each other. Clustering and bending into shape, forming lines and curves until a face emerged from the constellation.
The face in question was thin and pale, almost vampiric looking. His eyes burned red, each pupil large enough to swallow her whole.
Her blood ran cold.
"It's you... Lucifer!"
His cosmic face shifted closer, as his grin widened.
"We watched your fight against Death. Every last second of it. I will admit, you lasted longer than I expected you to."
"Then you should think twice before you say something you'll regr—"
"How amusing."
His red eyes narrowed.
"I came to inform you of a simple truth. You are far too weak to stop what is coming. And as the Ruler of All, this is one world you will not rule over."
"You came all this way just to threaten me? You must have plenty of time on your hands, Lucifer."
Her hands had balled into fists at her sides, and she could feel the tremor running through her fingers. She understood the situation she was in. His true body was still in Hell, far beyond her reach. All she could do was listen to him talk without any way of strangling him to death.
His red eyes studied her for a moment. Then he laughed.
"Threatening you? No. I have no reason to threaten the weak."
He paused.
"The disappearances have done more than swallow humans into purgatory. They have thinned the veil between our realms to the point where it can barely hold us back. Well... I exaggerate a little. The veil still keeps myself and Azazel at bay, and even if we were to cross, we would be sent back almost immediately. However..."
Her stomach dropped as she realized what he was about to say. She didn't need him to finish. If Lucifer and Azazel couldn't pass through the veil themselves, it didn't matter. Others already had.
"The Sin of Envy and the Sin of Sloth have already passed through. They walk your world as we speak."
Two Demons of Sin!? I expected lesser demons at the very least, maybe a high-ranking one if I was unlucky. But two Demons of Sin! That wasn't an invasion force. It was a unit sent to prepare for one. And if Envy and Sloth had already crossed, many others had crawled through with them. I'm sure of it.
"And now that Death is no longer active in this world..." His grin stretched wider, the red stars in his eyes burning. "Well... I trust you can fill in the rest.
She was being looked down upon. By a demon. In her own kingdom no less.
"You think I'm finished?" Her voice came out fueled by a rage she could barely contain. "You come into my kingdom, uninvited, and tell me what I will and will not rule over?"
Lucifer's expression did not change. If anything, his amusement deepened.
"Yes. That is exactly what I am telling you. And do remember... you are no longer the Conquest you once were."
Lucifer's cosmic face pulled back from her, the red eyes dimming as his constellation began to scatter. Conquest looked down. A black hole had begun to form beneath her.
The remaining white tiles cracked and fell, crumbling into the void one by one. The table and chair at the center of her realm followed, swirling around each other before they disappeared into the darkness below.
Lucifer's voice reached her one final time, already fading as his presence withdrew from her kingdom.
"A parting gift, from one ruler to another. Do take care of that crown of yours. It is all you have left... is it not?"
She tried to fly higher, to pull herself away from the force, but it was useless. The black hole had expanded beneath her and its gravity had locked onto everything in the Pale Kingdom, including her.
Her arms stretched outward as her white hair whipped violently around her face. She screamed into the collapsing void, but the sound was swallowed before it left her mouth. And for the first time since she could remember, Conquest, the Ruler of All, felt powerless.