The Laughing Swordsman

The lightning bolt paused in the air.

A voice rang out in Apollo's head.

"What I want?... I never really thought about that. I'm just doing things!"

His eyebrow twitched.

"You've got to be kidding me. Why are you trying to fight me? Don't you care about this body too?"

Apollo heard the sound of someone clicking their tongue.

"What? Why would I care about living or dying? It's not like staying alive is all that fun anyway."

He furrowed his brows.

"But... being alive is still better than being dead."

Apollo heard a soft sigh come from inside of him.

"Come on, why are you so silly! If we die, then we just get sent back to that time, remember? There's literally no point!"

A frown formed on his face.

"...What?"

"Did you seriously forget about that?"

Apollo took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.

"I suppose things are not as simple as how I saw them."

"Well, duh! Why are you so dumb anyway?"

He grabbed onto the side of his head, not offended, but confused.

"I... don't know."

Eden slowly walked up to Apollo. She was still confused as to why he was talking to himself, but noticed that the situation had calmed down somewhat.

"Are you alright?"

Apollo slowly closed his eyes.

"Not really."

He continued talking to his other self.

"...It appears we are going to have to deal with each other for a while, granted we are in the same body. Perhaps we should learn how to work together."

"Mm? I guess so? I don't really care though."

Apollo clicked his tongue.

"Then let's start off with what you do care about."

"Hmm... how about we ask what Eden cares about?"

He then turned to Eden.

"...Hey. What do you care about?"

Eden blinked a few times, caught off guard by this sudden question.

"Um, I'm not sure."

Apollo rolled his eyes.

"Come on, it has to be more coherent than that."

Eden fell silent for a moment. Suddenly, she began crying silently.

"I don't want people to destroy themselves and the people around them for the sake of power. I would rather that everyone dies."

Apollo tilted his head to the side.

"Alright, so..."

"I guess we can kill everyone!"

He let out a soft sigh.

"Maybe we can do a trade. We can cooperate or, we can take turns to accomplish things for the other. Like turns."

"Hmm... but you have to first help me kill everyone except for Eden!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"That sounds fine to me."

"Ok! I can just move the lightning while you move the body."

Apollo raised an eyebrow

"And how do you do that?"

"Hm? What do you mean? The nice thunder thingy gave it to us!"

He blinked a few times.

"Thunder thingy?"

"Bah! Whatever, the people are getting away! I can't attack them if they are too far!"

Apollo sighed.

"Alright."

Eden watched as he slowly stood up.

"Apollo? What are you doing."

Apollo turned around and smiled.

"Doing what you said you wanted."

Then he dashed into the crowd. The massive lightning bolt danced in the air like it was a fish swimming in water. A middle-aged man simply stared at it in shock.

Then, he suddenly no longer had anything to stare at it with.

Because the lightning bolt pierced through his head, leaving a big black hole in the middle. The man fell to the ground as screams resounded throughout the place.

"What? Why is the angel doing this!"

"No, I remember now! That was the fallen angel!"

"We need to find the council! Hurry, they said that they have their own angel!"

Although they tried their best to run, Apollo was simply much faster. He couldn't help but smile as he rapidly closed in on a little boy.

Without mercy, his bokken shot out.

Before the boy could even react, a wooden sword pierced through his head. It split through his skull, cracking it in two. The two halves ended up separating before falling to the floor, the contents of what was inside spilling out.

At this sight, Apollo began to laugh, but he couldn't help but pause.

"Say... are we doing something bad right now? By killing all of these people."

"What? How is this a bad thing? Don't you remember what these people do?"

As the moving lightning bolt around Apollo grew with more intensity, the voice in his head got really passionate.

"They ignored us! They always ignored us, no matter how hard we tried to talk to them! Why are you even thinking about them as things that deserve to live?"

A smile crept up on Apollo's face.

"...Yes."

And so, he dashed into the crowd without abandon. The giant lightning bolt would circle around, killing as many people as it could while he himself would cut apart any person he could get his hands on.

Eden watched this happen.

She couldn't help but wonder if she was the one that brought this on. That if she said something different, it might've meant that Apollo wouldn't be killing all the people around her.

Eden knew that she was supposed to feel bad.

She knew that.

But for some reason, it gave her a strange sense of satisfaction watching Apollo kill through the people brutally, ending their lives one after another. Especially since he was doing it for her sake.

After a few seconds of just watching, she ended up pulling out another black axe from her heart. A shaky smile gradually formed on her face as she joined in on the fun.

Several squadrons of guards had arrived not too long after this all started.

"Eliminate the fallen angel!"

However, groups of people wearing rabbit masks did too.

"The angel is doing his cleansing! Support him at all costs!"

And so, a rather chaotic battle began.

...

High up in the palace, in the center of the city, was Mark.

He was sitting across a long table to someone wearing a royal mantle.