"Why?" asked Blackthorne.

"Why?" replied Death, his eyebrow quirked upward curiously.

"With all of that going on, why would someone specifically target me with a curse?" pressed Blackthorne. "What did I do?"

Death closed his eyes for a moment. "I can give you my suspicion, but cannot give you the name, as that would invite them to view our conversation and allow them to plan to take action. For now they would not even know that you have died and visited me. I've looped the curse inside your soul so that they would think you unconscious."

Blackthorne growled aggressively at the supposed god of death. "Then keep the fucking name, and tell me why they did this!"

If Death was offended by the outburst he showed no sign of it. Instead, he nodded softly then began to speak once more. "It is only my guess. However, there is someone on the board of directors for this project whom has a serious grudge against my family and the version of you whom my sister has chosen."

"What grudge? Why is it me and my family that they go after instead of the rest of you?" asked Blackthorne.

"This creature cannot come after my family directly. We've taken measures both legal and otherwise." Death looked Blackthorne in the eyes then spoke in a calm and sincere tone of voice. "I believe that everything done to you and your family is related to that fact. This creature cannot harm us directly, so it harms you in order to harm us indirectly."

Something came over him in that moment. Heat, anger... a deep seated desire to reach out and tear down all that stood before him. Blackthorne took a deep cleansing breath. It did not help. His heart began to pound. The flow of his blood roared inside his head. Tension built in his body, almost to the point where he believed that he might snap.

His world, all those people, and his own life were destroyed for such ridiculous reasons. Worst of all, what had been done to his sister was linked to it all. Everything that had happened, all of it, was due to what sounded like administrative errors and petty office politics.

Death said nothing. He watched the seething dragon with eyes that were filled with sincere concern. It could not be easy for the man to realize the truth of his existence. Ultimately, he was a mortal. Even if several of his other incarnations were surprisingly odd in their particular interactions with Logos Remnant. There was little that he could do directly to fight against the systems the gods had in place.

Blackthorne lurched forward and gripped a headstone tight within his claws. The venomous rage that coursed through his body refused to die. It was a flame that continued to grow higher by the second. He did not know exactly why it had started, as he had heard the words spoken and managed to remain calm.

His sister's battered body appeared inside his head. All of it. All of her pain had been because someone hated another version of him so much that they visited their rage on his family instead.

Whether it was vocalized, or merely internal, he did not know or care for the truth. In that moment Blackthorne screamed. It was not a wrathful roar. Nor was it a terrified screech. It was the outpouring of a soul unjustly persecuted for far too long. Nothing he had done had caused the suffering. Neither he nor his sister were even important in the long run. They were nothing but useful tools to use against someone that an arrogant piece of trash could not reach.

He did not approve of the emotion, but pity did enter Death's gaze. He had seen that soul deep anguish before. Many recently deceased mortals had been forcefully faced with the realization that no matter what they did in life, the systems that operated their worlds were beyond them.

This was especially true when the gods were involved. They were an existence beyond mortality. They could not be reached by the hands of mortals, not directly. It was possibly to slay their crafted avatars, but nothing short of Logos Remnant itself could actually destroy a god. Even in battles between the divines each attack was little more than a prayer. Every punch, shotgun blast, or supernova was merely an appeal to the ancient ineffable system that governed all things. Please smite my enemy. Save us all from their dire machinations.

Death watched as Blackthorne gripped the headstone tightly in his rage. He watched as his wickedly sharp claws attempted to gouge out the stone that comprised it. That too was a common sight. It was beyond the power of a mortal to hard such a thing. Even another god could not do such. It was an immortal object, after all. The entire graveyard scene was comprised of such items. In game terms the tombstones were akin to indestructible pre-rendered background art.

The embodiment of transition from one life to the next did not attempt to stop the dragon in his grief. That was not his role. He was there to comfort the departed and to offer them hope of a new tomorrow. At some point the grieving soul would realize that it was as impossible to fight back against the gods as it would be for him to damage that headstone.

It was heartbreaking to witness; the dawning comprehension within the confines of a mortal soul. There was a limit to the sky, and beyond that was a realm where they were not meant to tread.

Death raised his hand. He did not want to disturb the man in his grief, but he also did not want him to become locked in an eternal loop of vengeful hatred. They both had things to do. He began to speak, only for something truly ridiculous to occur. A sound assault his ears, the sound of claw on stone.

He looked at the seething dragon then down to the headstone. His eyes widened slowly in bewildered wonderment. "Claw marks..." whispered Death.

Blackthorne did not register his words, or even his voice. He was still locked within himself. Memories broke free and warred with his sensibilities. He did not know what he could do, but none of it could be allowed to continue. The so-called gods had no right to do what they are doing to the world, and even if they did have that right it should be taken away from them!

Death watched the air around the dragon begin to twist and writhe. Existence became distorted. Glitches in the code of reality arose and disappeared at impossible speeds.

"I—" growled Blackthorne through tense and wrathful jaws.

"Yes?" asked Death quickly. Was something profound about to be stated? He had never seen anything like this in person. It was as though Remnant Logos itself had paid heed to this little mortal dragon's rage. Certainly, the system in place was unhappy. Like all reality matrixes, the version of the system that governed this world had a semblance of will and intelligence so that it could interrupt the needs of those within it. This particular system had started to seem both belligerent, and more than a little salty of late. Even it did not apparently like what was going on.

"I need---" growled Blackthorne.

"Yes?" pressed Death. He showed no semblance of fear in that moment, though the awe remained.

Hellish red light blazed in his eyes for the briefest of moments as Blackthorne repeated himself, but with one alteration. "We need—"

Death held his breath. He did not actually need to breathe of course, but in that moment he felt quite mortal himself.

The light in his eyes and the rage in his heart disappeared completely. All tension left the dragon's body as Blackthorne spoke once more. "Justice."

As the word left his scaly lips, Blackthorne's pronouncement rippled across the graveyard. Glitches appeared in several spots, but none so pronounced as the one that appeared directly before the dragon. One soon became several as glitched message windows appeared one after the other.

Death blinked as the world went silent. In front of him several systems notifications appeared. The same glitched message windows that had appeared before the dragon. For some reason, he was being shown a mirror of what Blackthorne now saw.

Several level up notifications appeared. In this place, there was no voice from his little sister to signify such things. This was mainly because they rarely happened in this particular locale. However, the most bizarre addition was a simple menu.

Dark Judgment [EX]

None shall judge thee so harshly as thine own true self. The word of law may not reach the depths of a corrupted soul, but by the weight of their own wickedness shall they be dragged down into the abyss wherein they shall dwell until all wickedness be purged.

"Exceptional skill..." The embodiment of death, should death be reborn as a male model, could not believe his eyes. Exceptional skills were literally that, exceptions made by the system. This skill would not show up on any list that could be read by the project committee. Nor could they in any way deny its usage. As far as the system would be concerned, such a skill was akin to a fundamental law of existence. It could not be blocked by another skill. At best it could be withstood, but never reduced in capacity.

"He had so many questions!" Death tried to call out to Blackthorne. He needed to know something, anything, about what he had just witnessed.

"I guess that means I passed the trial?" asked Blackthorne quietly. In his paw he held three gleaming golden tokens.

"I..." Death wanted to say something more, but his own oaths of office were more important than his desire to learn more. "Yes. From what I can see, you are authorized for resurrection... Somehow."

The system had seemingly decided that his psychological breakthrough had counted as a trial of heroism. Whatever had happened within the dragon's mind and soul was of such as profound and transformative nature that the system decreed him triumphant.

Blackthorne nodded his head gently then looked to a glowing cylinder of light that arose nearby. "I'll be going then,"

"Wait! I have so many questions!" called Death.

"They'll be answered in time... but until then even I will forget a lot of those answers," Blackthorne looked back at the personification of Death. The light in his eyes shimmered softly for a brief moment then he offered a crooked crocodilian smile, "Isn't that right, Silence Ardent?"

"My name. How did you learn of it?" asked the god of death.

Blackthorne turned away and began to walk toward the light one more, though this one would take him back to the worlds he knew instead of the great beyond. Silence could not help himself. "Wait! I need you to ask me to set up a court case on your behalf!"

"For what purpose?" asked Blackthorne.

"The curse! We need to search for the culprit," said Silence.

"There is no need," said Blackthorne.

"What? They were the cause of so much suffering! You will just let them go?" asked Silence. "We could bring them to justice if we can find proper evidence!"

"Justice... Child you are still far too young to even know the meaning of the word," whispered Blackthorne. "If you can't even clearly proclaim the name of one whom you are so certain is the reason for my despair, what good is your justice?"

"Wait! Please! What's happening here? I need to know," called out Silence.

Blackthorne looked back to the plaintively crying deity. "I remembered something."

"You remembered something?" asked Silence. "What did you remember?"

Blackthorne turned away from Silence. As he walked toward the light he began to sing a strange song reminiscent of a nursery rhyme.

No matter what Silence said after that, he did not falter in either his steps or his singing. Soon, he disappeared into the light.

Alone in the solitude of the graveyard, Silence leaned heavily against a tombstone. "Something happened here... I..."

He could not process what he had seen. There was something fundamentally wrong with every part of it. One thing remained with him clearly, however.

"What good is my justice?" whispered Silence. Something about those words would haunt him for quite some time. The way the dragon had spoken made him sound incredibly old, even though he was only a normal man a few weeks ago.

The song that Blackthorne sang also haunted him. Silence whispered them softly even as he tried to understand what they could mean beyond their literal interpretation, "On Midnight wings he comes to us, yet he blazes like the sun..."