“beautiful!” Bel said while bouncing nonstop. “this place is beautiful!”

“careful” Sef pulled her away from the road. “if you miss a step, it’s over”

She broke free and blinked at the clouds. “why? Are these things not fluffy?”

“no” Erze said. “they’ll drop you straight to the sea and crush your internal organs with the sheer force of the impact”

Sef smiled at Bel. “don’t believe this nasty girl, just stick with me and you’ll be fine, okay?”

Bel’s eyes narrowed. “why do I need to stick to you? What are we going to do here?”

“hm” Sef stroked his chin. “guess I should do a quick lesson first”

Erze raised a hand. “me! I’ll do it!”

Bel shook her head, but the knowledge of Erze’s past passions forced Sef to nod. He sat at the center of the square platform and called the girl to his side. She resisted at first, but obeyed in the end like the good daughter.

“so!” Erze paced sideways. “you’re now at one of Pandora’s highest points, the road of Cainon. Any questions?”

“questions?” Sef said. “you barely said a thing!”

Erze stomped. “hand up if you want to speak!”

Bel raised two. “teacher, where does this road go?”

“good question” Erze said, touching the ridge of her nose as if she wore an invisible pair of glasses. “this road extends up to the other side of the underworld in a south east to south west manner. It intersects with the road of Abelon to separate the four seas and serve as the ramp of the gods”

“intersect... gods... four seas...” Bel murmured with a blank stare.

Sef picked a pebble and drew a circle. “here, think of this as Pandora...”

“um” the girl nodded.

“and then...” he made a slanted line from the top left, down to the bottom right. “this is where we are”

“um”

Erze joined the huddle and drew another line opposite to the first, creating an X mark that divided the circle into four slices of pie. “this is the other road, Abelon. Together they form the north, south, east and west seas. Got it?”

Bel looked back at the staircase. “why didn’t I see these road down there?”

“they’re only seen here” Sef said. “but they still reach downstairs. Invisible, but not gone”

“how about the one there?” Bel asked with a finger pointed at the clouds.

“what there?” Erze asked back.

“the one infront of your wall”

Sef searched Erze’s face for answers, but found silence and more confusion in return. It was only when a certain memory bubbled up from the depths of his mind that he understood the little girl’s question.

“that’s right!” he drew a smaller circle at the center of the X mark. “it’s here!”

Erze raised an eyebrow at him. “another four walls?”

Sef grinned guiltily. “past the horizon in our wall, there’s a circle of walls that further divides the four seas into Pandora’s gate and hall"

"gate and hall?” Erze murmured.

Bel nodded. “the gate is where you and the weak children like me stay, while the hall is where our strong big brothers and sisters are”

“why only them?” Erze asked. “isn’t more happier than less?”

Bel shook her head. “being strong is more important than being happy. It let’s us do our job better”

“what job?”

“to guard the place we aim to reach” Sef said.

Erze shot an accusing glare at him. “why didn’t I know this yet?”

Sef threw a peace sign. “sorry, I haven’t had the most detailed memory these past years"

Erze narrowed her eyes even more. “by the way you talk, it sounds like this isn’t that big of a deal. Do you really have a good plan mapped up?”

Sef flashed the most convincing face he could muster. “calm down, it’s just a tiny detail. If this girl proves to be a good final piece, we can sweep whatever stands in our way, even if its something as strong as the guardian of this place”

Erze did not grin back. Her face was white and her eyes were wide in terror, a sight that puzzled him at first, but sank his heart as soon as realization struck. He locked his hands and calmed his mind to the best he could, but it was too late. A lump of black fluid already landed on Erze left shoulder and dissolved it to the bone.

“come forth!” Sef hid a screaming Bel behind him and watched Erze’s unconscious body morph into a spear.

“cross stitch!”

The weapon flew out of Sef’s line of vision and danced with their airborne foe. Metallic clashes pierced the silence and harmonized with Bel’s shouts of fear, creating a noise that made Sef grit his teeth.

“calm down” he wiped the girl’s eyes and pressed her cheeks. “this is not the time to cry”

Bel clung to him like a kitten on a tree trunk. “what’s happening?! Why is teacher’s shoulder like that?!”

Sef hugged her back. “um, let’s just say a really strong monster tasked to protect this place caught us off guard”

“why didn’t you know?! You’re seven hundredish old!”

“age is just a number kid, it doesn’t matter”

“then what does?!”

Sef lifted the girl’s gaze towards his eyes. “I know this is quite unfair, but you need to show me all of your soul now. I need to harmonize it with Erze, or else we’ll all be dissolved”

Bel shook her head. “I can’t do it! I can’t show everything!”

“listen” Sef pinned the girl’s head and stared at directly at her, revealing both the fear and determination painted in his eyes. “just trust me and let everything go down to the last drop”

“I can’t! You’ll see me! You’ll see how bad I am!”

Sef smiled. “that’s fine, I’m bad too, I’ll understand you”

One blink at a time, the panic in Bel’s face disappeared. She still looked scared, she still looked unsure, but as Sef held her hands, an air of acceptance emerged around her.

Sef closed his eyes. “don’t think, just release all of it”

The sinister song returned with a vengeance. It was louder, and more vivid than before, as if the emotions that it contained no longer came from the outisde but from within Sef’s own soul.

The longer he listened, the thicker the darkness pressed against his eyes became. He hated its color, its emptiness, but most of all, he hated the pleasure it gave to his unclean soul. There was no way to escape it, that was for sure, but somewhere in the midst of the noise came a melody that summoned a dot of light from a distance.

“fear not sweet child, in my arms you’ll never be defiled”

“look up sweet dove, in my arms you’ll always be loved”

From a mere whisper, the song grew loud enough to drown the sinister noise. At the same time, the speck of light expanded to all directions and dissolved the darkness, bringing to view the bloody face of a man who smiled as if it was the happiest day of his life.

“don’t worry” he said with certainty. “your mama made me promise. Papa won’t leave you”

“no! Don’t open!”

As a voice pleaded at the back of his head, Sef opened his mouth and unhinged his jaw. He tightened the tentacles wrapped around the man’s neck and pulled his head in. The man gave no resistance, he remained smiling till the end, even after Sef’s jaws closed shut.

Darkness returned, but Sef’s vision remained. He was now back at his favorite spot above the wall, staring down at a humanoid figure kneeling at the center of the black waters. It was skeletal in appearance, with gray leathery skin, a bald head and ten muscular tentacles protruding from its back.

“mama... papa...”

Its deep voice sent shivers through the water up to Sef’s spine. There was no emotion in its words, nor a trace of humanity in its blank face, but with every call it made, a portion of Sef’s petrified heart began to ache again.

“are you sad little one?”

The waters in front of the monster rose and gave birth to a red hooded man. In his right hand was a knife and in his left was a wooden basket Sef recognized far too well.

“papa?” the creature directing its hollow eyes at its veiled visitor. In response, the man knelt down and asked the question Sef received once upon a time.

“do you want to be happy?”

Without a second thought, Sef jumped off his wall and pushed the hooded man out of the way. He may not have empathy for the monster in front of his house, but he would not allow his eyes to witness the same tragedy again.

“you...” he bent down and reached a hand out. “do you want to be corrected?”

The hooded man reemerged beside him. “if you choose correction, the desires growling inside you will never be satisfied. Come with me, I have what your heart yearns for”

Sef grabbed the top of the monster’s head and bumped its forhead against his. “listen kid, getting what you want won’t guarantee your happiness. Yes, loneliness is painful, and yes, guilt is heavy, but those are not reasons for you to run away from this. Pick yourself up and follow me. I’ll lead you to a place where we can both be corrected, where both of can become what we really are supposed to be”

A hand sprouted out of the monster's head and grabbed Sef's face. It was soaked with blood as dark as the sea, yet instead of shivers, it gave warmth. And instead of shade, it provided light that turned the gloomy world white.

“so we meet at last" a voice said from behind.

Sef spun with a pokerface. “Belly girl's father? Correct?”