The moon was shining outside the window, becoming redder and redder.
Indeed, it was another Full Moon night.
'Mr. Door's voice…'
Fors was relieved that it didn't belong to the Fool this time.
Already accustomed to it, Fors chanted the Fool's honorific name and waited to be summoned into Sefirah Castle.
However, time passed, and the Fool wasn't answering.
Bam!
Fors fell from the sofa, collapsing onto the floor.
"The Fool that doesn't belong…"
She chanted the honorific name another time, yet there was no answer.
Why…?
The pain increased. Now that she was Sequence 5, the intensity of the ravings was much higher than before. Although she could survive the Fool's ravings last time, the Full Moon lasted much longer.
Fors started to scratch at her head, the pain unbearable.
"The… Fool…"
She repeated it again.
Why wasn't He answering? Apart from the anomaly of when the ravings came from Him, He had always answered.
Fors's body trembled as she realized.
"Yellow… and Black…"
The Fool may not answer this time.
Her nails and hair had grown long, and her face was bleeding due to the scratch marks. However, her head hurt too much for her to feel it.
…If He didn't, wouldn't she die?
Without the Fool, Fors couldn't survive.
Fors tried her best to hold on, her sight blurry, but it was getting too much for her to bear.
How much time had passed?
It felt like one hour. Or was it only one minute? Why wasn't it over yet?
For how much longer would she have to endure this?
Her body started to deform, alternating between a normal state and loss of control, worms appearing on her face as madness overtook her mind.
Bang!
She didn't realize she had started to throw things around the room, not fully in control of her actions.
It was hard to form any concrete thoughts.
Click.
Enduring the pain, Fors did not hear the sound of the door opening.
She was about to give up.
Hurried footsteps then rushed to her side.
Amidst her suffering, Fors vaguely distinguished a familiar petite figure.
"Fors…! Fors, do you hear me?!"
Looking closer, Fors seemed to see the face of her friend screaming something.
Her eyes widened in horror.
"Xi… o…?"
What was she doing here?
Another assault of pain made her lose her mind, her body distorting once more.
No, no…! She was turning into a monster! Xio had to leave!
Xio continued calling out to Fors.
For a while now, the bounty hunter found that her friend was behaving strangely.
Going away during Full Moon nights, slowly distancing herself, then going on a trip… Although Fors had vaguely mentioned having problems every Full Moon, she had said it wasn't a big problem, and Xio had believed it.
She hadn't known her friend was actually enduring such pain.
Since Fors returned to Backlund, they had been exchanging letters. Thus, Xio knew where her friend lived due to the return address written on the envelope.
Following the address, Xio discovered that it was a fake one, and was even more convinced that her friend was acting strange.
However, as a bounty hunter, the fact that it was a fake address didn't stop her. Utilizing her connections, it was easy to learn where her friend resided.
Of course, she could have asked Fors herself, but since the writer was hiding things from her, she decided not to.
At most, Xio thought someone may be threatening her friend. That was the reason why she decided to tail her.
Out of concern for her friend, Xio had thus started observing her house when screams followed by loud sounds were heard from outside.
Worried, she had decided to enter and saw her friend in that state.
Xio looked at Fors, the writer's face half composed of worms as she looked at her with a mix of madness and horror.
"Fors! Do you hear me?!"
Fors was losing control.
Wanting her friend to leave immediately, Fors saw her abnormally long arm heading heading toward Xio, her body following suit.
'No…!'
The reason she had distanced herself from Xio in the first place was so that, even if things went wrong, nothing would happen to her friend.
'It doesn't matter if I die, but Xio…!'
So Xio shouldn't be here right now.
As she panicked, Fors's mind briefly flickered out of consciousness, her body transforming into a monster even more.
"Fors! Answer if you can hear me!"
Trying to make her return to her senses, Xio saw her friend suddenly lunging toward her and barely avoided it.
What came out of her friend's mouth was not words but an inhuman roar.
"Fors!"
The writer's long nails scratched her cheek, reaching her at an inhuman speed.
Xio's gritted her teeth and called out again, "Regain your senses…! It's me, Xio!"
Xio had no choice but to recognize it. Despite her friend's ability not being combat-oriented, the gap between them was enormous.
The Sequence 7 Xio could not win against the out-of-control Sequence 5 Fors.
'What can I do to help her…'
Xio did not find a solution.
All she could do was stay here and try to make her regain her senses.
She didn't want to give up on her friend.
Even if her friend lost control, Xio didn't have the strength to dispose of her either.
If things came to this, Xio would rather die together with Fors.
"Fors, please…!"
Moreover, irresponsibly leaving a Beyonder who had lost control here alone would put nearby people into danger, and Xio's sense of justice didn't allow it. The official Beyonders would eventually hear the commotion and rush here as long as she stalled for time.
…If only her friend could return to normal before that.
Fors struggled with all her might to keep her last bit of sanity, her body already having turned into a monster. Her mind was barely registering the current situation as she fought against madness.
However, the next thing she knew, her friend's injured body was laying on the ground, motionless.
Xio had died at her best friend's hands.
Fors completely lost control.
Outside, the red moon had already returned to normal.
A loud shriek resounded.
The Full Moon ravings had ended, but Fors's state was already irreversible.
A few minutes later, red gloves reached the building. Leading the team, Crestet Cesimir stepped forward.
"It seems we arrived too late."
Although the matter shouldn't fall under their jurisdiction as Fors Wall officially believed in the God of Steam and Machinery, this was an order from the higher-ups, so the demigod hadn't questioned it.
Entering the apartment, they could see a body on the floor, the face barely recognizable due to scratch marks.
The person was smaller than average and their gender unidentifiable. Moreover, their body was full of wounds, their clothes in tatters, and one arm was missing. A Beyonder characteristic was also already forming on the corpse, showing that the victim had been a Beyonder. They must have struggled against the monster before dying.
Around them, the room was a mess. The walls had deep scratch marks, blood was scattered around, the couch ripped apart, and objects broken as if someone had thrown everything they had on hand.
Lastly, having noticed their presence, was a rampaging out-of-control monster. Fortunately, the monster had strangely chosen to stay around the dead body instead of leaving, thus there was no other casualty.
"Be careful, the opponent is a Sequence 5 Traveler," Crestet Cesimir reminded.
In his hand was a Sealed artifact to separate the current space from reality, effectively dividing Beyonders and ordinary people to prevent further damage. The red gloves behind him nodded.
With a demigod on their side, they managed to deal with the out-of control Fors before cleaning up the scene.
Above the gray fog, the Fool felt the presence of one of His anchors disappear.
His gaze left Amon for a moment, glancing toward a lit-up crimson star.