"WE ARE FLANKED!! MAKE WAY BACK TO THE FORT!!!!"

  "KEEP FIRING THE MORTAR!! THE INLANDERS ARE RETREATING!!"

  The fire during this battle is just too much for any soldier to handle. I swear I have seen many heads being crushed rather than dragging dead bodies to safety. Somehow I am still alive despite big iron balls flying across the sky. Honestly, I enlisted myself, Pujokusumo will be so mad and on top of that Diponegoro is leading this guerilla. The objective is to secure the perimeter and protect the fort near the Royal Burial. The fort's construction is shabby, and when the Prince was trying to fix it, The Company launched an attack. Front lines always need some people, if anyone volunteers it's good, if there's none then someone will sign you up anyway. I wonder how long it'll take for one of the important Princes to realize that I'm facing death near the Royal 'Eternal House'.

  "DON'T STOP MOVING!! BE ALIVE FOR YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS!!"

  It's been a while since I sat down with my rifle in this pit. I stood up to see how bad is the situation. Others are running back to safety but the wind tells me to be a war hero. Narcissistic I know. I recount how many grenades and clips I have left. Surely I can't make much of a difference with just a couple of grenades. Somehow I still need to give people time for them to run away. The mortars are closing in I suppose their target is to topple the unfinished wall. A grenade will not do much to steel... unless somehow I find an intel of some kind of explosives.

  "You have to go..." said an unknown soldier. His legs are injured. Looking at his uniform he's a cavalier. Probably he got trampled by his horse and now crippled for life. Broken and there's no sign of any hope for him.

  "I need to buy time for others"

  "I WILL buy you time. You're a better asset than me now... go ahead brother, they're calling Banaspati anyway. This place will burn in hell"

  Banaspati??

  I have only heard legends about him. He should be in the same platoon as I am. The Pujokusumo's Secret Service. Soldiers said his parents made a contract with a devil for power, and the devil wanted the child, but Banaspati himself exorcised that very abomination on his own, costing his mandible and ability to talk. There's always something astral about the Secret Service, I heard that every member voluntarily learns magic to fight back the black magic, shunning themselves from heaven. People say he breathes fire, I would take that without any grain of salt. Soldiers on the high end are somewhat crazy and would devote their souls to free this land, ideal nationalists I would say.

  "Brother.. go!"

  Even so, I do not have anything special except my physique. I have a plan and I already know what I'm going to do. If anything this is the only thing closest to magic that I have. I can separate my soul and somehow find a way to win this battle.

  "My brother, if I may inquire something from you," I asked him with confidence as I tied down his legs.

  "I have a plan but I will require you to protect me!"

  I learned this trick just to finally touch Sasmita, but I didn't know if today would actually come. How much time is the limit before I would be gone for good? Last time it was around three to five minutes. I guess it's enough to buy around five minutes, and after that, I will carry that guy to safety as well.

  "Say it, brother..."

  "Take my rifle and grenades. I will separate my soul and find their weakness! Your task is to protect my body!"

  "You're what????"

  "You heard me loud and clear! I will see you on the other side!!!"

  Something would certainly go wrong if I am not careful. I loosened up my uniform, sat down, and closed my eyes. Deep breaths, and slow but sure the battleground goes quiet, the heartbeat goes softer, then the breath goes weaker. This is the situation where I can easily separate my soul and my body. Essentially the King from the previous Kingdom used this trick to assassinate a governor in Batavia, but surely my skill is nothing compared to him. On top of that, it's too dangerous, once lost I could never come back to my body.

  "The departing of the soul is painful, but it depends on many substances..."

  A sudden pain burst from my cranium. Something is trying to pry open the gateway that isn't supposed to be opened before death. It hits me, and with every hit, it gets stronger.

  "Who are you daring to dictate life and death"

  I opened my eyes. Bright, white, no more blood or any kind of violence. I am certainly not inside my body. Did I manage to separate myself? Ugh, this thing never happened before.

  "Stop playing hero. Whatever you're planning... you'll only get in my way," A man suddenly appeared before me.

  A soldier. That black hair with no stereotypical haircut. A face so horrible it would send someone into a trauma, half flesh and half demon-like mask. It feels like the mask somehow merged with his flesh. His hands are burning with blue fire but the same fire could not burn down his uniform. His eyes are dark brown, almost pitch black and you could see the annoyance in his face. This is him, one of Ghost of Death's prodigies. The boy who breathes fire, Holland-Inlandsche School's top student, and the one who cheated the demon, Herjuna Bangkit. Who would have thought that he was an alumnus? I wonder who's his parents and what did they do.

  "Banaspati? Or should I say... Juna?" I asked after knowing he was someone I knew from school

  "You're breathing only because of your mother's status"

  His codename possesses a cool meaning and a short temper passed down from his personality. Well, maybe I am a little mannerless, a buffoon who called his senior by his given name. His anger is justified I suppose.

  "The order is clear. I will burn this place to the ground. You'd better evacuate with that guy" the man says while he plays with the fire that burns his hands.

  "Don't you have any limits?"

  "Exhaustion. Unless you can feed the fire for me"

  "The mortars, they needed gunpowder to work. Just need to locate where. I mean they can be explosive"

  "Find it. Be my eyes"

  "It might be far deep. I don't know how long I can be astray"

  "I can assure you that you're in good hands"

  I guess I just have to trust him, blindly. This battlefield has too many fresh spirits so they might want to invade my vessel. Clearly, I require someone who understands astral projection. But I don't have a lot of time for this. The curtain has been dropped and the lights went off, nothing to be worried about because my vision is back, it's just weird seeing your own body disconnected from your sight. Three minutes on maximum, I ran as fast as I could approaching my enemy. It looks as if I'm committing something stupid. As I passed their front, I could see artillery deployed with three to five people working on one mortar. There are no gunpowder... these mortars explode on impact. The latest on the development. That's why we built trenches?? I could see that their camp and carriages weren't so far away from the battlefield, I guess it is some info for Herjuna.

  "It is enough... I know where to shoot. Comeback to your body now"

  "No! I still can find some intel for-"

  Words are just words left unspoken when some huge forces are pulling me back from the enemy's territory. The speed is fast but It feels like it would take forever for me to get back, I guess the definition of velocity and distance are different when regular physics is no longer with you. My neck is scuffed with pressure and I barely have any air inside my lungs. Seconds later the pull is getting stronger and it's choking my neck. I can't breathe no matter how hard I try.

  "Agh!" The sense of emptiness, the feeling of desperation when there is no meaningful air inside your lungs. I beg for air when I regain control of my limbs.

  "Are you okay!? Here, drink my water!!"

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  "How bad is our situation?" I refused with my hand to the soldier with broken legs.

  "They're closing. We're as good as dead. I only have one Molotov"

  I grabbed my gun while thinking about what should we do next while waiting for Juna's support fire. We're sitting ducks and literally there's nothing we could do but wait for anyone to fetch us up.

  "Any idea?" That soldier asked

  "Banaspati will blow this place to pieces. The mortar they use explodes on impact. Chances are the explosion is going to be big and we need to reach the deeper trench in front of the fort," some thundering mortars are still being launched, so best to stay down and unnoticed.

  "We need a diversion"

  "We can't... if anything just lay down. I'll protect you. We'll be at home sooner than you think"

  The soldier laughs

  "I guess good people die young."

  "Ah, save the funerals for later. I wanna go home already," I reloaded my gun with a fresh clip.

  The enemy is closing in, we throw any kind of throwables we have and find anything useful from our dead colleague to survive. Some clips and grenades but I don't think it will suffice. In between shots, I see the will to live from this soldier coming from his eyes. We kept on shooting any nearby enemies down to the very last bullet we looted from others.

  "I'm out... this is it..." he said

  "No! Not yet," I gave him my last clip of ammunition.

  "It's over!"

  "We need to survive until-"

  A dark light suddenly surpasses us. The sky turned darker for a while then a split second it went bright. Blinding anything and everything. The silence is powerful and loud, it takes some more seconds for us to undermine the current narrative of the battle. It's like a dark shooting star, made of dark wishes and vengeance of all people in the world combined. Two white-coloured tails left smoke trails that would disappear in split seconds. The Arrow is beautiful. Anyone who sees it would surely be amazed and stop whatever the heck they are doing. Before they realise it, it's already the end for them. Who knows it was a man with a prosthetic mandible who owns the curse. There's a price behind any power you have they say, but I can now somewhat understand the arrogation in a search for immortality and a path to Godhood. Another seconds later a huge explosion and darkish cloud formed in the vicinity.

  BOOM!!

  A loud noise followed after.

  "GET DOWN!!" I screamed to him.

  A gust of wind travelling at high speed, alongside all sorts of shrapnel so sharp they would tear you apart. The sound of the wind could scare any grown man from miles away. While getting down on my stomach, I could feel some objects fly past my back. Seconds later the air is filled with dust, I could not see anything from afar and some of this dust gets into my eyes, causing an itch that is sometimes hardly resistible to scratch. The stranger and I waited until the gust calmed, we looked at each other while thinking about what steps should we take. I got up on my feet, vision still dusty from that explosion, but I tried to scan for any threats.

  "Fucking Inlanders..."

  I reached for my rifle on the ground, not knowing how many bullets were left inside the clip. The bayonet points towards the origin of that voice. Slowly a silhouette emerges from behind the dust fog, surely in the shape of a tall white man. Nobody expected that some people would survive Banaspati's arrow. Could he be some human with a demon contract?

  "You... He predicted you to be here... but who could've thought that you're a foreign variable..."

  BANG!

  The silhouette dispersed as the bullet pierced the black shadow. "Show yourself!"

  "Do you still ride on that same old bike?"

  A surge of heartbeat strokes my chest violently. The sense of familiarity suddenly hits me, I have heard this line somewhere. Not from my family, everybody knows I ride an old bike that belonged to her. Somewhere down the line, it was a conversation of antiquity, a matter of taste, but I could not seem to remember either the place or the face. The longer I think, the more vulnerable I would be.

  "I cannot believe today is the day I confronted my own brother in this war"

  Using the word 'brother' to your enemy is way too intimate. The only Dutch that would address me by that is either stupid or their father is close to the Governor himself. Bram, the way we solve problems just never changes, but why the hell does it have to be you of all people?

  "All is fair in love and war, Bram.." I took off my outer lapel and concealed my injured friend.

  "Brother, are you insane?" The soldier tried to whisper.

  "Don't worry, this is just some personal dispute between classmates"

  After all, a bayonet from this rifle is all I need to defeat him. I have no emotions, I have zero empathy, I am a soldier and all I have is nightmares that haunt me every night. I have nothing to lose. If I have to take the life of the only friend I have in school, I will gladly do it. I climbed the ranks with honour, brawn, and brain. No treacherous friend can hold me back, besides...

  An enemy never backstabs, they're just honest the way they are.

  The figure came closer and finally revealed his face. Something telling me to run away. As if I have never faced Bram in some kind of street fighting. However... his face...

  "What happened to you.." with pity I asked him

  "A gift from the Queen herself,"

  His face bleeds a dark-almost-black type of blood, with two horns growing on his forehead. From his mouth, sabre teeth and the gap between his lips emit dark-coloured smoke. You would never believe he's the same person congratulating me on my scholarship the other day. His humane factors are long gone, all I sense is only his corrupted mind doing dirty things for whoever made him this way. I could not fight him in this condition, fuck... fuck... FUCKK

  GODDAMMIT BRAMM!!!

  Is there a way for me to touch his old self? I don't mind it if it's 'You' Bram but what did they do to you?? What kind of twisted sick mind does your father have??

  "Are you... even there..." I asked.

  "The old Bram is long gone. Like it or not it's still me, "

  "You're nothing like Brahms Dekker but a cheap pretender."

  Half seconds later he charges onto me. Fast, I saw his hand movement charging up a punch on his left hand, but the moment I was about to counter him, a hard punch landed on my chest. Suddenly every airway felt blocked. I could not breathe. Despite being airless I need to focus on Bram, himself. The pain surged every time I tried to breathe, he probably broke some ribs on me. As long as the blood stays inside I can keep on fighting. I swing the bayonet multiplier times across his vitals, but he makes dodging an attack as if it's nothing. Negative thoughts are forming and it's forcefully dragging me down.

  "Give it up, Airlangga. I might give you a swift death"

  "I trusted you, Bram... ugh... Foolish for me to believe that you would live up to your name"

  "I admit that you're a perfect human being. But the na?veté inside you dominates the battlefield"

  I am naive because I have morals.

  "To hell with you Bram"

  "Speak as if people like us are promised for heaven!!"

  While I run towards him, Bram leverages his position by taking a bayonet from a random gun. I sense danger but obviously, I cannot run away from him. In this situation, he would always catch up to me even if I had the golden opportunity to save my own life. Every freaking time he swings his sharp edge, I could see death staring face to face with me. Good, I can leave this world without any worry of sin because all of my them are forgiven through sacrifices. I need a good momentum but he's swinging faster and I can only dodge so much before I get exhausted from thinking, where's Banaspati when you need him the most? Bram grows stronger every time I miss my attacks. Not lying, exhaustion is just a matter of seconds for mortals who have been fighting a war since 3 hours ago. Do you think it's completely fine for me-

  A hard punch sent me flying a couple of meters away from Bram. I couldn't figure out what happened after that fist hit my left temple. The pain seeped in and it grew exponentially by the time I landed and hit a rock head first. I'm in a fugue, it hurts so bad I can't even remember what day, where, and why am I doing this. They ring quite loudly, that is for sure and nothing else becomes my mind's priority to hold in the pain. I tried to stand on my feet, only to find blood started pouring generously from the impact point of my head. I get dizzy as dizzy as a drunk person on a mysterious sex orgy. I stare at the distance, looking for danger...

  No... stay...

  Stay awake...

  "Fuck... is this really the end..." I muttered to myself as I involuntarily kneeled. If anything I cannot afford to get more blood flow into my head but if I don't get them to flow I will be unconscious. What a dilemma, and this is why you should get your head checked immediately after a harsh impact.

  I have no meaningful power and Bram's silhouette is only getting closer and more visible to my eyes, tho the blood makes my left eye a bit blurry.

  "I don't understand..." I said

  There's only silence between him and I

  "What did they do to you..? Think about what would your father say..." I continue while unsheathing my close range.

  "Don't make me laugh, Airlangga. You know nothing about my life"

  He charges fast, and luckily his emotion made him somewhat slower just enough for me to read his movements. However, I got too dizzy when my hands blocked his punch. My arms are hurting and maybe if I were to take another punch, they would fracture or shatter to pieces. Nevertheless, my guard is always on, that talk really slows him down by a lot. Is there a huge cost in using this much power? While Bram keeps on laying attacks again and again, my weak body can only wait for momentum where I can impale something with this toothpick.

  "What happened Bram? The gift starting to cost you something?"

  "Shut up!!"

  His movements are getting wider with each punch, what is exactly happening? All I know is that the opportunity is soon to arrive, yet It feels like 200 years. Even though he's slower than the last time, one more punch can probably end my life. Come on! Just one wide swing from you.

  "Ugh!" Thinking too much is proven to be bad as a hard punch perfectly landed on my chest. Another ribs broken, another pain inflows, another difficulty added in, and my consciousness began to fade little by little. Somehow it feels warm, could it be my body trying to accept what is fated?

  No...

  I can't lose...

  "I CAN'T LOSE TO YOU!"

  "GIVE IT UP, BROTHER!!"

  Come to me, Bram. Just like the way you approached me for mercy from the Governor's son. I will give you a swift death, a mercy like no other! I forgive your mistakes and may God forgive you as well. The steps led us to this moment, as we swung weapons, I ended the friendship we used to have. His chest is widely open yet his attacks are surely swift, one shot and it is all I needed. The Kris pierced his chest-

  "Akh..."

  Unfortunately, he's not the only one getting wounded. The bayonet pierced my left stomach, it was one for one trade yet I hoped that my part dealt more value to him. Blood gushing out, I kneeled again in front of Bram. I... I'm on my very limit of life. I accept it, I welcome my death...

  "You think... this puny steel would hurt me?" Bram lowered himself to match my gaze.

  "Do it... end me if you wish to do so..."

  "I'm just getting started..." he said as he drags the bayonet from my left side, to the other side.

  "Unghh... ARGHHH!!!!"

  Inches by inches, pieces by pieces he tore my flesh into his likings. More blood gushing out as my vision went dark. This is it, my own peace, my own end of time. I am grateful to die in my friend's own hands.

  "STAY AWAY FROM THE PRINCE, YOU DEMON!!"

  Familiar...

  And then...

  Black fire....

  No, it was... glooming red. So hot yet it feel like home...

  I....

  I'm home...

  Mother....