My name is a bit long, isn't it? Saber-Cry Abyrion-Iscaria Soul-Trapped-Blood?
It means that I am a blade.
A warrior who cannot cry but must.
An abyss of my past and the grace that I myself have fallen from.
And a soul forever trapped by flesh that I must escape.
Yes, it is very complicated indeed. In fact, there is more to my name beyond that, and even more in my native tongue that I cannot properly communicate to mortals.
You may call me Iscaria, but never Saber, for I am not a warrior, nor do I want to be remembered as that empty shell that one would dare to call self.
In a way, I am like Simon, as we have both fallen from grace. Two ravens, one stark white, and the other midnight black, that fall on different paths yet land at the same destination. The sun. Our wings will forever flap until they burn, until we cannot last any longer—only dreaming of obtaining freedom.
My mind is wandering again, isn't it? Sorry, it tends to happen from time to time. Enough about me, let's get back to my Master, shall we?
The building Simon had arrived at was a clocktower-like structure, gray and on its lonesome. The inverted clock was stubbornly stuck at 5 PM, all the mechanisms long past their due dates.
There was a faint veil coming from the top of the tower, a thin line wrapping around the area. These are called "Neils." To the human eye, this veil could not be seen, and their brains would process it as something else.
That's how humans are — if you cannot see it, it does not exist.
However, Signators aren't regular humans; their bodies are advanced beyond human comprehension. They can see what cannot be seen, hear what cannot be heard, and speak what cannot be spoken.
This way, humans would see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. To the Signators, they were just dumb, deaf, and blind mortals.
Simon cautiously entered the building, met with nothing but a descending spiral staircase and a few windows above him. He began to walk down it, the blue sky bleeding into crimson red.
Slowly, the sun peeled from his sight, but strangely, as he reached halfway, it became increasingly hotter. A singular drop of sweat fell from his forehead, but it began to cool again.
He glanced up again, the sun now completely gone, replaced by a constantly expanding golden vortex that shot stars out. The golden spiral flickered from time to time, but still it remained.
As Simon reached the bottom of the stairs, a sense of pride washed over him. Ten years of constant training had led to this very moment — to his first-ever mission.
He had been called many things, Child Prodigy, Onyx Ace, Fate's Favorite, but Cognition Officer never reached his mind...
He observed everything that his eyes could reach, finding himself in what appeared to be a subway station. More importantly, he saw a map left by the last person who had been here.
He quickly traced the train tracks of said map with his fingers, finding his objective. Simon grabbed a copy of the map, just in case he got lost, and started walking along the train tracks.
As he headed south, the structures around him warped into a thick black essence, emitting ominous black particles that smelled of gasoline and flowers.
He could sense that he was going further and further into the Hollow World.
With one last sharp turn, it all came to an end.
What he saw in front of him was what could only be described as beautiful.
His vision grasped an entire city, one that he was very familiar with. It was the same one he grew up in after all — a replica of New York from 2006.
It was raining a fragrant scarlet wine, and it flooded the streets below him. The stars that shot out from the golden vortex, surrounding the sky, in blinding white halos.
The air carried the scent of sweet berries and warm iron, the smells mixing like milk and honey. He extended his hand out towards the stars, catching a puddle of the wine into his hands.
He wafted the puddle, then lifted it closer to his nose. The closer it got, the more it reeked of an old stone and leather.
Simon was confused; he took another sniff before looking up.
Those halos were now tainted red, blending into the crimson sky.
He blinked once more, just to confirm what he saw was in fact real.
Then he saw it...
Each halo had entities on it; each one a failed attempt to reach the Hollow World from the Vortex.
What he was smelling wasn't wine; what flooded the streets wasn't that either.
It was blood.
Terror painted his face, his mind freezing.
Every repeated thought he had on his way had left his brain.
If he could move his legs, he would run. But he was planted into the ground.
Simon felt weak — He couldn't believe that he had almost drunk it. Then the seep of the berries seeped from his nose.
Now all he could comprehend was the horrible scent of that coppery-sweet scarlet.
He shuddered.
Whatever had created this world had its own protective barrier around it, so Entities couldn't enter from above.
He was scared to walk forward, but he had a mission to complete.
(I should be fine; that means there's less of a chance for Hollow Beasts to appear. Whatever made this is not human either, so I don't need to worry about Entities trying to fight me.) He tried to tell himself, tried to calm down — but nothing worked.
He took a singular step forward, entering the dimension on an apartment rooftop. He had to collect every piece of information about this world that he could. Even if it was just this city, he had to explore it to his limit.
It didn't take long before he was soaked in the blood of the Entities, but he continued as best as he could. He leaped from rooftop to rooftop, checking how far the area he had to check was first.
The more he traveled, the more he thought it would never end.
(How strong is this entity? There's no way something this strong should even exist anymore. I thought Rin Sato killed them all?)
Just then reached the border of New York.
There, he saw that it wasn't just one state. He saw multiple cities out in the distance and decided to turn back around. He went east, checking yet again.
Simon sighed in relief as he heard the sound of flowing water, thinking that after all this world was incomplete, running faster towards the sound.
As he was jumping from one of the rooftops, he suddenly lost his footing. He barely managed to catch himself, his feet hooking to a window above him.
(That was close...)
He pulled himself up and into the building. What he saw in front of him was a large lion that was twice as large. It had a huge gape in its stomach, one that was fresh and still leaking.
Simon approached the beast, and still heard it breathing.
(...I'm supposed to be the only thing here. But this is still fresh, still breathing.)
Simon took out one of the ruby daggers and held the lion's neck. It growled at him, but it was too weak to fight back. The fact that it was here was already bad; that meant that someone was with him.
After all, the cut was too clean for it to be done by a beast. He plunged the dagger into the neck of the lion and slashed downwards quickly, ending its misery. Just as he did so, he looked up into the window and saw an entire ocean.
There was really no limit to this world; it was a replica. This horrified Simon; whatever was down here was way too powerful for him to deal with by himself.
He quickly began to retreat until suddenly...
*Houuuuuu!*
A pack of wolves flooded the streets along with other beasts such as boars and tigers.
They all wanted a piece of this land, Simon in it or not. They gnawed at each other, desperately chomping off whatever they could sink their teeth into.
He had to leave, and he had to do so quickly. He ran back towards the entrance to see more Beasts running into the world.
"No, no no no!"
He turned left, trying to wait until the horde had finally arrived before leaving. But just as they disappeared, another batch came in, except these had wings. Some even followed the scent of human flesh, surrounding him.
Normally, he would kill everything he came across, but with more than sixteen animals surrounding him, he had to flee.
He didn't know where he was going; he just ran until they finally backed off. Looking back, a lone wolf was still chasing behind him, but it was scared to approach the building Simon was standing on.
Its tail was tucked between its legs before it ran off. Simon couldn't tell why it hesitated, but what he did know was that he was safe for now.
(Okay, just let them fight it out and leave.)
With that, Simon caught his breath and turned towards the entrance once more.