Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 191: Ch189. ... You need to spill some ink

Chapter 191: Ch189. ... You need to spill some ink

Miles sat still for a moment, a finger half-lifted as if to point at Sarissa, then letting it fall as she looked away. The fire crackled in the brazier behind them, low and steady. Outside, the storm had passed, but the silence it left behind was heavier than thunder.

Sarissa stared at her palms, thumbs slowly rubbing together. She didn’t look at him.

"You were going to ask."

"Yeah." Miles said quietly. "You said you had to kill yourself."

She exhaled, and her breath shook a little.

"Didn’t you say that you decided not to regress anymore?"

"I don’t mean to end my life in the regressing sense." Her voice was steady now, but her eyes stayed downcast. "Not anymore. Not after everything we faced and are still going to face. I mean..." She raised her hands, then lowered them to her lap. "[Regression]."

"Your skill?" Miles blinked. He leaned back slightly, brow furrowed.

"Yes and no. It’s not just a skill anymore. Not for me." She nodded.

"It never was, for her." Cheshire stirred from where he perched on the bookshelf without anyone noticing, his tail swishing idly. "And since we finally got to the point where concepts truly matter, I can finally say a word or two about it."

Sarissa and Miles listened as Cheshire yawned, before he spoke.

"Sarissa’s Stories might be broken, but there’s one specific Story that is still perfectly written, and it’s her [Regression], because it wasn’t a Story that was born within her. It was more likely planted on her."

Sarissa didn’t smile. She folded her arms and pulled her knees up onto the couch in the Professor’s study, curling slightly inward. Her voice dropped to almost a whisper.

"You felt that once. It lets me undo things, to correct the ones I can. Mistakes, pain, even death, sometimes. I always depended on it to grow stronger, until now." She shook her head. "Because somehow, it now feels... Wrong."

"I see." Miles nodded. "But... How are you going to get rid of..."

Miles’ eyes widened as he looked at the knife, and a sudden thought struck him like lightning.

"Wait..."

Miles looked at her, fully, searching, and there they were. Her fractured stories, the two fragments that belonged to Alice and the Hatter, and inside her, even deeper, pulsing like a beacon, her inherent skill.

[Regression].

It lit up like a lighthouse trying to show her the way, but not forward, even though it made her power feel that way.

Sarissa’s [Regression] only pulled her away from everything and everyone, and Miles could see it clearer now.

After he checked on it with his [Story’s Eye], he turned his gaze towards the knife, and truly understood how she was going to kill that Story of hers.

Her face was pale but resolute, her eyes didn’t even flicker when she saw the obsidian rings in Miles’ irises glowing in that crimson light.

"Can you see it?" She asked, a faint smile curling her lips upwards. "How this knife can bind a Story to one individual, and at the same time, sever a Story from its origin?"

"That sounds like something the Professor would say." He smirked. "And you haven’t even been with him for that long."

"Yeah, yeah." She gave a weak chuckle. "But it’s paying off."

Cheshire finally hopped down from the shelf, landing noiselessly between them.

He turned his luminous eyes toward Miles first.

"Survival isn’t the same as living, and growing strong by running away from the present isn’t the same as moving forward."

"You’re right, Chess. It’s a blade that cuts both ways, but even still, it hurts more than heals, and that’s why I have to kill it. I don’t know if I can suppress it or reforge it or seal it, but it can’t stay as it is. It can’t keep being this escape hatch it has always been."

"What does that look like? Getting rid of something that you were basically born with?" Miles rubbed his hands together, leaning forward.

"Well," Sarissa shrugged. "Only one way to know."

Miles hesitated. Then he reached out, finally placing a hand gently over hers.

"I hope it’s not as painful as what we’ve already been through."

"So do I." She whispered. "But we both know that it’s far too much to ask from a world that throws monsters at us in every corner."

"There it is, the steel." Cheshire smiled his impossibly wide grin.

"You’re really okay with this?" Miles looked to him.

"I am not her keeper, my dear." The cat replied, chuckling. "I’ve seen what she’s capable of and what her [Regression] does countless times through her memory, even though most of the time she didn’t allow me to be. But she’s in peace with what I am to her now, and I’m in peace with the fact that I’m finally going to have more appearance time in the pages of her Story. I’m her guide, she’s Alice’s legacy, but above anything, we’re friends. Just like you and her are."

"That’s a bit of a stretch, to say the least." Miles and Sarissa said in unison, and both glared at each other, frowning. "Uh..."

"And that’s why I love watching you, guys." Cheshire’s grin widened. "But going back to what matters, she’s reclaiming her strength through it, and I find nothing more commendable that this."

Sarissa gave a small, tired nod.

"It may weaken me in the moment. But I want to live forward, not backwards. I want to stop being a shadow of all my second chances."

Miles let that sink in, and then, let out a long breath and leaned back, looking up at the ceiling.

"Alright. Then what can I do to help?"

"Nothing." She said, almost kindly. "This one’s on me, but you can stay while I do it. And cross your fingers to pray nothing else happens."

"Sure. Let’s dance." Miles nodded.

Sarissa sat on the floor in front of the brazier, her posture still but tense.

Cheshire drew a chalk circle around her, humming an old tune, as if they were preparing for a ritual, the air in the room buzzing softly, like the system itself was watching.

Miles sat just beyond the edge of the circle, legs crossed, fingers clenched in his lap.

Sarissa exhaled, the knife on her hand feeling like it carried the weight of a thousand lives.

The moment she touched the tip of the blade to her chest, right over her heart, she screamed.

Not from pain, at first. But from memory.

Everything was flooding backwards to her memory, unfiltered and unrelenting. Regrets she’d erased, failures she’d abandoned, deaths she’d unwound, names she’d forgotten, moments she’d chosen never to live with.

Then, came the pain.

And the inevitable scream escaped her throat.