The pain was growing with every passing minute. Keeping the nihil active was causing too much strain on his already weakened body, but if he let it go for even a moment his thoughts would no longer be his own. Without the crutch of emotions the mind was truly his own.

  "You will break in time!"

  The shadow was just taunting him. It was waiting for him to end the nihil so he would once more be a slave to the bond. Without emotions its words had no power over him, but if he didn't ignore it then there was a very real chance it would eventually wear him down.

  Jane had been controlling him through his emotions and without them he would be far less susceptible to her manipulation. He had been weak, but now he was truly strong even if his body was in decline.

  Was this what he could have become if he hadn't almost lost to the old emptiness? A perfect machine that performed every action without fail. His failure had been succumbing to desire, but now there was no such thing. Everything felt like a simple cost benefit analysis, yet there would be no way to maintain it forever.

  The compass that was the bond always pointed towards Jane and had revealed to him that she wasn't within the town proper anymore. She was somewhere in the woodland east of Arthur's rest and that was her first blunder. Had she been hiding among ordinaires she could have avoided a direct confrontation, but instead she had isolated herself.

  Jane had flown too close to the sun by assuming he couldn't circumvent the bond somehow, and now like Icarus her wings of wax had melted sending her tumbling down towards the cold hard ground.

  Eventually he spotted her waiting within a small clearing. She hadn't seen him, but he knew she would be aware of his presence even if his body was concealed by the trees.

  "Come to me," her words had been no more than a whisper yet to him the sound was deafening.

  His body moved faster than his mind could take control of his traitorous shell and within the blink of an eye he was standing before her.

  "End the spell."

  The command echoed through him, but it couldn't overcome his will. His magic was his own and she couldn't control it. There was a limit to the bond and it was one he could use to his advantage.

  "It appears you can't truly take my will from me," he said in a flat monotone.

  Her eyes were anxious and the illusion of control was fading. She had to have realized just how grim her situation was. There was so much emotions on her face and it revealed just how weak she really was. Without him she was weak and now that he had turned on her she was outright helpless.

  "Al, I'll give you anything you want if you end that spell!"

  Bribery wasn't going to work. She should have known better than to even try it against a being without desire. He had been a tool that she would have most likely disposed of the moment his usefulness ran out, but now he had turned on her and she was helpless without someone like him to protect her.

  "They took my family from me! You can't betray me now when we have come so far!" she screamed as his hand reached for her throat.

  She was so small compared to him. There was no way she could stop him even if she tried. The commands coming from the bond weren't reaching him anymore. She was kicking and screaming, but his iron like grip on her throat wouldn't let go no matter what she did.

  "I just wanted my family back," she wheezed.

  "You made me into a pawn, and we all know that a pawn will always be sacrificed to protect its king."

  He could feel her blood pressure fluctuating as her heart struggled to pump oxygenated blood to her brain. Garuda had really given him an interesting trick to employ against his foes. It showed just how much the battle against the immortal had benefitted him in the long run.

  "Let go!" she exclaimed as her consciousness began fading.

  His grip loosened before he could suppress the command. She fell to the ground in a heap before him. Wheezing and coughing, she looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

  She tried to crawl away from him, but stopped in her tracks as he put his foot down on her back. Why hadn't she cast any spells on him? She should've been able to do so and yet she wasn't doing it. The revelation struck him and it made him realize just how great his advantage was.

  "You realized that I would just nihilate you if you so much as tried casting a spell."

  "You're afraid because you know there's no way for you to win if you actually try to stop me," he muttered to himself as he put more weight on the foot pushing down on her back.

  "You could never understand what losing your entire family is like! They took everything from me!" she cried.

  He had been willing to abandon his family for her, but it was clear to him that he had been disposable from the start. Losing him would be a great setback, but it wouldn't have been impossible to recover from. She would just find someone as vulnerable as he had been and make them into a weapon just like she had done with him.

  The pain was becoming unbearable and his power was quickly fading. There was no way he could maintain the nihil much longer, but even if he killed her to escape the bond the Autumn clan would still hunt him down in the end for what he had done to them.

  "I would like to negotiate a change in contract and you should be able to figure out what I'm thinking of with that big brain of yours," he said to her.

  Her face turned pale. The bond must have let her known what he had been thinking and it clearly terrified her.

  "If you accept my demands you'll get the revenge you seek, but as always there will be terms and conditions."

  He wasn't asking for all that much really. All he needed was more control over the bond itself. Sure it would put her at risk of becoming beholden to him, but it was only fair considering what she had done to him. It would mean her revenge coming to fruition even if she did have to pay a heavy price for it.

  "Look Jane, we'll just make it a two way street here. You give me all the same features that you've been using on me and we're square."

  It was more than fair really. He still needed her and now she would have no way of turning on him since she didn't seem to have a spell like the nihil. Now neither of them would be free, but it was better than giving her the chance of ever turning against him.

  The worst scenario now was if she completely broke the bond because then he would have to kill her and would end up fighting the Autumn clan all on his own. Either way he would never be free, but if she accepted his terms he would at least have someone useful by his side.

  "Fine! I'll do it..."

  Finally she had figured it out it seemed. He would carry out her revenge, but she would never be able to get rid of him. This resolution would surely satisfy him when his pathetic emotional side came back.

  He raised his foot so she could sit up and then threw her a cold expression. The nihil would fail within minutes so he couldn't let her stall for time.

  "Get to it right now or I pop your pretty little head like an overripe grape."

  He watched her work for what felt like minutes. The bond wasn't something visible, but he could feel the changes to the bond as she worked. The true nature of everything the bond had done to him became clear as day as all the parts that made up the familiar bond were revealed to him by the changes taking place. He would have real control now and she would be just as trapped as he had been very soon.

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  He could already sense her emotions and surface thoughts. The terror and helplessness she felt was immense, but as far as he was concerned she should have been happy. Because she was the one who would win in the end even if she would never truly be rid of him.

  "It's done, and we both have to agree on it if the bond is to ever be broken now," she said weakly.

  It was the truth. There was no longer a way for her to hide her goals or intentions from him. They were bound on a spiritual level and there was no way one of them would be able to survive trying to break free on their own. There was only one thing missing, but he wouldn't force her to make that last change to the bond. After all it was far more cruel if he didn't.

  "It would have been so much easier for you in the end if you had just applied the function that reinforces positive emotions like the one you put on me."

  He gently took her hand and shot her a menacing smile. She had chosen to suffer knowing that she was trapped with him forever, but he wouldn't take that freedom from her. If she wanted to make herself suffer it was her own problem and in all honesty she deserved it for what she had done to him.

  "I'm probably going to regret this when I end the nihil, but I think some part of me will get a bit of sick satisfaction out of this in the end," he said as he held her hand in place and began bending her pinky finger.

  The bone snapped like a twig under the pressure. She cried out in pain, but he just moved on to the next finger. One after the other he broke all the fingers on her right hand without so much as blinking. He didn't feel a thing because of the nihil, but he knew the darker part of him would enjoy it even if the bond would make him feel some regret over it when the nihil fell.

  "Why are you crying, Jane? That's nothing compared to the pain you caused me," he said coldly.

  "Your fingers will heal, the pain will fade, but you denied yourself the chance to ever have something like the family you once lost."

  "The saddest part really is that I would have most likely forgiven you if you had been honest with me from the start."

  Her eyes went wide at that. It was clear she wasn't using the bond to read the deeper meaning behind that so he would just have to explain it then it seemed.

  "I had nothing, so I would have gladly continued living under the illusion of love even if it was fake."

  "In the end does it even really matter if it started out as something fake when it feels just as good as the real thing if not better?"

  "Feelings are deceptive and you could even argue that all relationships are fake to an extent since it always comes back to us doing things because we expect some reward for it."

  He could feel how conflicted her emotions were getting. On the one hand she believed that her family had been the only thing she had ever loved genuinely and on the other hand she was trying to come to grips with the fact that all of her other connections could have given her some joy had she only chosen to accept them as real. She was finally coming to the realization that her current loneliness had been self inflicted, but if she would be able to ever fully accept that remained to be seen.

  "Without my emotions here to mislead me I can fully accept that I was genuinely happy even if it started out fake, but you're just denying yourself happiness that you could have found long ago."

  That strong front she had created was breaking, but unlike him she had never managed to hollow herself out. She was a stunted emotional wreck while he had come to terms with himself even if it meant he would suffer for it.

  The emptiness had been no more than an attempt to separate himself from a world he felt he had been denied, but he was free now. So what if his joy had been enforced by magic? He had escaped his emptiness back then and soon he would let his emotions come back out to play. He wouldn't forgive her for what she had done, but at the same time he wouldn't hold it against her any longer.

  He had won, while she wallowed in her self pity. Either she would come to realize that she could have chosen to be happy all along or her suffering would never end. Right now he really didn't care either way.

  "You broke my fucking fingers and now you're lecturing me!" she screamed through the tears pouring down her face.

  "The fingers were the price you paid for not telling me sooner, but the lecture was genuine."

  "You're questioning me despite the fact I'm simply telling you things you've already figured out for yourself but vehemently refuse to accept," he sighed.

  The nihil was finally failing. Soon he would no longer be able to think this clearly. Breaking her fingers had been enough and showing her just how flawed her thinking had been would be punishment enough for that weak other version of him.

  If the emptiness the nihil had given him was what he had wanted during all those years, then he had clearly been delusional. An inability to suffer meant nothing when he couldn't feel any joy either. It would have been a hollow victory and life needed both the good as well as the bad for it to have any meaning.

  He let the spell end of his own accord before it could fully crumble. Emotions rushed back in waves of terror, anger, despair, and sadness. Yet he was okay with it. He had come to accept the suffering because it made everything else feel like it actually mattered.

  The love for Jane remained, but so did the hate. It would take a lot of work for him to fully come to terms with what she had done, but maybe he would come to fully accept it all with time. Some part of him wanted her to be happy no matter what, but the empty him had known better than to blindly trust her.

  Standing had become impossible so he simply let himself drop then and there. It didn't matter if anyone caught him because the pain would go away eventually.

  "You were nothing but a tool," she said quietly.

  "You're getting what you want in the end, Jane, your revenge is just as likely to come to pass as it was a day ago," he mumbled.

  She was falling apart on the inside, but his spite wouldn't let him console her just yet. If she didn't come to accept her own failings then she would never truly learn.

  "But what does it matter when my family is dead and I'll never have anything ever again!"

  "I am just as trapped as you are, but I don't have to fortune of being blind to that fact!" she screamed.

  Slowly he crawled over to her side and pulled himself up using the trunk of the tree she was sitting by. He could have nihilated her, but he wasn't sure if there was any way to survive it all without her. It would have meant going back to square one and having absolutely nothing, but his other self had made sure there would be something keeping him tied to the world. One singular connection that he wouldn't lose.

  "I'm not trapped seeing as I'm here of my own free will, Jane."

  "We'll end the Autumn clan together and then we can figure out the rest with time."

  "Will you shut up already! I don't want to hear that from my weapon turned jailor!" she exclaimed.

  "Jane, you don't have anyone else because once it's all said and done you have no life to return to."

  He leaned his head against her side and stared up at the blue sky above them. There was plenty of time until nightfall so if he was lucky he would have recovered enough to hunt down another Autumn witch by then.

  "I'm all alone! Do you even understand what that is like?" she cried.

  "You're asking me? The guy that threw it all away for your sake?" he chuckled.

  "You were meant to complete my revenge and then die!"

  "Which would have left you just as lonely as you were before, but now you will never be alone."

  "I hate you! What about that do you not understand?!"

  "And I chose to accept you despite everything you did, so I'll just hold on to the hope that maybe one day you will come to accept me as well," he said solemnly.

  He was left stunned as she wrapped her shaking arms around his chest and embraced him. Cold tears dripped down onto his face like tiny droplets of rain. Despite all that hate bouncing around her head she still wanted him near her.

  "I miss them so much, but it feels like nothing I do will ever make them come back!"

  He reached for the bond and peered into her mind. Her memories flashed before his eyes like a never ending slideshow. She had been avoiding it for so long, but he would make her face the facts.

  "Jane they wanted you to live and be happy, but you're doing everything you can to stop their dream from coming true."

  She didn't say anything as she tightened her grip around him to pull him closer. They had given their lives to make sure she could live hers, yet every day she did all she could to avoid having to face that fact.

  "If you won't do it for them, then I will."

  Her sniffling stopped for one short moment. The forest grew silent around them as her tears kept flowing in silence. He swallowed heavily before speaking up once more.

  "If being rid of me is what will make you happy, then I'll gladly break the bond once your revenge has come to fruition."

  Her grip tightened once more like a kid holding onto a teddy bear. She despised him, yet she was scared of losing him. Were her feelings that conflicted?

  "Or we can figure it out once this is all over."

  "You broke my fucking fingers," she hissed, yet she didn't let go of him.

  "Yeah, and you've been mind controlling me so I'd say we're as close to even as we'll ever be."

  It almost made him laugh. She had been manipulating him, but now they had no way of misleading the other. They were well and truly equal, which terrified her, yet made him feel at peace with his situation.

  He could feel her emotions through the bond, and despite all that hate inside of her she really did care for him in some way or another. Maybe breaking her fingers had been a bit excessive, but he hadn't really had any emotions to hold him back when he did it. In fact he had felt almost like a different person when he was under the nihil.

  "You've already healed your fingers, haven't you?" he asked her.

  "Yes..."

  "Good, because I really was starting to regret doing that."

  "You're an asshole..."

  In eight hours or so hours he would be mostly recovered and ready to hunt down more of her enemies. It was just a matter of time before it would all be over. Something told him that she wouldn't leave him, but at the same time he worried about the future.

  They were both fundamentally broken, but he wasn't like her. There was no way for him to escape his own nature while she could overcome hers. The joy gave him the meaning and direction to move forward in life, yet he would never be truly human. A return to his obsession with her and the addiction to the joy he experienced or a return to the emptiness was all that lay ahead of him.

  "Four witches down and who knows how many more to go," he muttered to himself before closing his eyes.

  "Please don't leave me all alone," she whispered to him as he began drifting towards unconsciousness.

  "You need only reach out through our bond, because if you do you'll see that you'll never truly be alone again."