To Test Time

"Terma, give me a sitrep." Lothair was on the floor gazing at the library ceiling once again, trying to ignore the destruction of property that might be caused by him. "Cause I have absolutely no idea aside from feeling the regret and sorrow of old-age condolences."

Hearing the audacity of that freak, Terma reforged his smile as he took a deep breath through his nose, keeping his legs from shaking in mortal agony. "Just, wait a moment, you little, Nit-Wick."

Terma cast an Overclock on himself, waiting in his own separate flow of time until his arm was able to fully regenerate. For a moment, he had a traumatizing thought that his regeneration capability was stripped from him forever. Thankfully, that was not the case.

"Won't that take a lot of Ayin?"

"I have a couple of condensed Ein in reserve."

"Must be nice having talent, huh I can assume that your regeneration improved a little though, thanks to my procedure." Lothair put on a cheeky grin as he turned his head towards the grumpy sheep lad.

"As much as I hate it, it improved by at least 30%." Terma sighed in defeat, throwing his own body to the pile of books on the ground near Lothair. "There is not the slightest satisfaction from being healed, even with the amount of benefits it gives. Then again, maybe your healing spell is just that dangerous."

"I can see that it's related to destruction around us. Did any of guards or faculty members took a notice yet?"

"I've planted a motion sensor for processed Ein flow and five senses. Apparently, we're as good as living in a gapless box."

"Tell the tale then."

Terma stretched a snarky smirk. "Right after you bawled your eyes out of nowhere, one of the forbidden books near us reacted strongly to you, putting you under its influence." He then created an 'O' letter with his thumb and index, lazily raising it in the air. "It's really terrifying, actually. Your whole face turned into a pit of darkness before a giant, red circular eye replaced your abyssal complexion.

"After that, you went into a monstrous rampage, unleashing a sinister killing intent that is capable of amplifying the emotion and vulnerability of those who gaze back into the abyss. Truly, if I were to face such a horrifying experience again, I might cry."

Lothair thunderously stood like a jolted machine, before creepily faced his single, giant red gaze. Any voice he conveyed in this form was corrupted in a muffled stutter.

"You mean like this?"

"GAAAAAAAH!!!!" Terma reflexively cast a spell that coated his arm with an absurd amount of electrical discharge as he hurled it towards his seemingly corrupted friend.

A burst of flesh and red were blown into the air once again. The headless body of Lothair stood lifeless, before it took a step forward and slapped Terma in the face.

It took a couple of minutes before his head fully regenerated again. Despite being the perpetrator of a nasty joke, Lothair pouted in disappointment.

"You're lucky that my regeneration is potent enough to prevent any permanent loss of information when my head got blown like that."

"Why you out of all people are the one who's in that regeneration spectrum…" Terma wryly chuckled, darting an eye on his friend's hair. There were more shades of gray than before. "Did you use any healing magic to restore that perhaps?"

"Yeah, I think I unconsciously did it while waiting for my head to regenerate. Maybe my muscle memory saved it as a proper course of action in such a scenario."

"Still, what with the scare??"

"I just remembered how it felt when my body got into such a state." Lothair nonchalantly raised his index. "With that memory, I can replicate the feeling, basically influencing my own body to create the same yet more controllable result." He snapped his finger. Immediately after, his whole face turned into a pit of abyss, engulfed by the maddening red eye. His gentle voice returned to the corrupted growl of insanity. "And I can do it willingly! So far, there's no downside to my body and psyche."

"I get a downside whenever you do that though."

"I know."

"So, why do you still maintain that form!?"

"I know."

Lothair placed both of his hands on Terma's shoulder, leaning forward to gaze into the depth of the horned demon's heart.

Seeing the sorrow and pain behind that red eye, Terma relaxed all of his muscles.

"You have something to say."

"Truth to be told, Terma, my hatred runs deep inside my veins towards the very thing that took my treasures away." The reality began to distort as Lothair began to tower over the gazing demon from above like an arc of the city's street lamp. "This world gave me nothing for my pain. My Winter ignored my plea, and every one of you demons sickens me with every indelicacy within your mind and action."

"Why are you telling me then?"

"Do you have a better idea?" Lothair tilted his head, amplifying his distorted whisper.

"Tomorrow is X-mas, no?"

The distorted reality restored itself immediately the moment the word 'X-mas' chimed into Lothair's knife ears. His face returned, but instead of the ever-smiling trickster he was supposed to be, a face full of pain and sorrow was there to replace the image that Terma held high in his mind.

"It seems like the healing spell you used began to corrode both of our minds." Terma gazed to the floor with half lidded eyes. "It makes both of us vulnerable, empathizing with one another, as if the permanent mark of insanity within us has been slowly stripped away from the wall, from the corner, inch by inch, letting us contemplate the pain that we used to endure like nothing."

Both of them realized this fact, and it was too late to do anything about it.

"Terma." The tears stopped flowing from Lothair's eyes. Instead of the frown of pain that he showed before, it was replaced by a determined glare akin to Jin from Nagel Symphonia. "There is a recorded myth of a borderline omnipotent being called 'Santa'.

"He knew the names of every child, every act and every sin that they accumulate for each cycle of winter. The good children were given presents of hope and joy, while the sinning children were given a lump piece of coal….

"Hey, Terma." It appeared —the unhinged, mischievous grin that fit Lothair's complexion more than the frowning whimper of the weak. Edges arch from cheek to cheek. Sharp teeth were bared as his glare shifted into that of a judging prosecutor. "Don't you think that demons are simply children of all sizes and shapes?"

"Reviving the tradition, huh."

Terma actually had his own reason to be in this forbidden section of the library, along with the other reason of why he took Lothair into this place.

But now, it doesn't matter anymore. In front of him, was a solemn fruit that was more enticing than anything that he had ever latched his eyes upon. A fruit so sinful, so deadly, and so wicked of hatred upon everything that exists.

The horned demon responded to the offer with a wide gaping smile.

"So who's going to be 'Santa'?"

"You're in for a lucky day, then." Lothair reached forward with both of his palms facing each other. In the middle of it, manifest a most dark and ominous orb. "This is everything that I could convert from my single-eyed form that I gained from the forbidden knowledge.

"Truly, befitting of the name forbidden. The one that you fought or I used willy-nilly today was a mere atom of what it could actually do. Yes, my affinity for this unknown power was closer to zero than one percent. Now imagine what would happen if a proper person is able to utilize it for real?"

"So this is what you're going for."

Terma's pride wavered from the sight of the orb's existence. The moment he thought he was able to fathom it, his mind was encapsulated with a grasping hand from the outer abyss.

"You will use your Overclock to hasten the time of your own, along with the existence of the orb." A sinister chuckle slipped from the corner of Lothair's grin. "If I were to deduce the amount of time needed to convert this as yours, it would take 127 years at least.

"Of course, no need to worry. Before you attempt it, I shall transfer half of my Ayin to you. There are around 100 years worth of reserved energy waiting to be converted, thanks to the inability of my own spellcasting that allows such a number to exist."

"I'm surprised that you have that much."

"The quality is just so bad, that they didn't emit any presence beyond the reservoir in my soul. As if it's undetectable in a sense." Lothair wryly snickered. "But then again, I guess that's somewhat a blessing in disguise...

"So, what do you say?"

"I'm in."

"Unhesitant, are we?"

"You're that confident to do such a length." Terma began to unlock all of his remaining Ein reservoir, converging and accumulating all of them into a single, pure, and condensed source of absolute all-purpose catalyst. "Then I don't want to make keep 'X-mas' waiting for any longer."

With a nod of confirmation, Lothair began to disperse the majority of his Ayin reserve, letting Terma absorb all of them into a material for his magnum opus of energy.

"Sun's hymn knead the vein, in catharsis vain, collapsing into a school of thoughts for the brilliance of End — Chrysanthemum! Carapace and orifice of the cladding wraith and terra's kin, bleed in sacred thorn and blessed dream, cropped in crimson whim-"

Beyond that, the chant became more and more indescribable, inaudible, and unfathomable. With every chord struck to the pedal of the voice, a choir of repeating hymns were arising like a massive storm of afterimage.