Everything was a dull, uneven, torn asunder battlefield. Every step one took was pain. Every step one walked was agony. The final step would be the first, in a never-ending cycle that held no regrets, and yet held no salvation either. It was the price to pay for letting others shoulder the debt that should have been paid in full by the one before, and yet handed off to the next one.
It was the revelation that all penances must be paid in full.
It was the unspoken and unyielding desire that peace and quiet were meaningless in the face of great tragedy.
It was the truth hidden within the blood, the fire, the pain and the agony.
Yet, even then, someone had to shoulder the debt of eternity and suffer through the pain to achieve reality, only for reality itself to be granted upon another. Never achieving truth, always living a lie, yet in the end, grasping neither.
An empty shell worn by an empty soul. An empty being that was filled with nothing, and yet devoured itself in order to gain sustenance. It was an eternity of hunger and an eternity of pain as flesh left the place to more flesh and blood was drank to make place to more blood.
The never-ending cycle, the devouring self, the Ouroboros that all ate, the dragon that chewed upon the Root.
There I stood. There I walked.
There I was.
Summoned not out of love, but out of spite. Called forth not out of kindness, but hatred.
For in the end, I could achieve nothing.
Yet, by achieving nothing, I could safeguard everything.
How many Masters had died in how many repetitions across the Golden Throne's desire? How many times had I brought forth the despair of loss, never thanked, always insulted?
Yet, by allowing failure, I would allow victory for a larger purpose.
That was my duty.
That was my earnest plea.
A Grail that could be a Grail, just for once.
A wish held dear that could safeguard me.
Unfortunately, Captain Obvious would look at me and name me his sidekick, for the eternal truth was as such, and would always be as such.
"All debts must be repaid in full."
And all debts would.
I closed my eyes as the strings of magical energy latched on to me and pulled me away from the throne that was my penance and my agony, away from the cycle, away from my own fears and unfortunate reality. I was pulled, and pushed, and squeezed and as I followed through the sustenance of the throne -eternal agony, but sustenance all the same- came less to be replaced by a bottomless hunger.
It was a hunger unlike any others, a hunger that only my will could hold at bay. It was that hunger that made me open my eyes. It was my hunger that told me a prey was nearby.
It was my heart that stopped me. My non-existing, non-beating heart, devoured and replaced with another that would beat the same tune, but yet be different, for too many times had mine bled invisibly.
If life was agony, then this single moment of time was an even greater agony.
I stood tall and proud, but my eyes were sad. I could feel the waves of pity roll off my frame like drops of rain.
I stood in a familiar, but cluttered warehouse that acted as a workshop. I stood in a familiar, yet eerily foreign, place. In front of me, an orange haired girl stared up at me from the glowing circle.
Even though she was familiar, I still had to properly ask her.
Even though she was a stranger, I still had to properly ask her.
"Are you my master?" I asked.
Her breath was caught away, stolen by the very wind as I heard the sound of impatience from behind, a gentle but inevitable warning that someone was standing in wait in the courtyard.
I turned my head to the outside, to the familiar place that would have brought tears to my eyes, had I not seen it thousands of times, thousands of-and then it was gone.
The Snake reared its ugly head, and crimson eyes glowed as the Secret Knowledge was hidden for the benefit of the World, for the benefit of Time and Space. And in the day it would reopen its jaws then would the world end.
For he was the Snake that Ate Himself.