The Cleaner practically dug the mysterious artifact out of his own body in wild delight and tossed it to Donnie.
Then he happily prepared to look for a new job. Honestly, if not for this unknown artifact restraining and influencing him, he would have quit being a Cleaner long ago.
Suddenly, the Cleaner stopped, spun around, and looked at Donnie solemnly. "Donnie, we count as friends, right?"
Donnie was fiddling with the strange weapon in his hand, immediately implanting it into his body to assess how much it could delay the dark matter devouring him. Hearing that, he tilted his head and thought for a moment. Including this time, he had only met the Cleaner twice, and they had exchanged fewer than twenty sentences in total.
"I think we do... probably..." Donnie considered it, then nodded seriously. "What do you want to say?"
The Cleaner said, "I don't know what you went to such lengths to obtain this artifact for, but I hope you clearly understand what you're doing... I can't stop you, and I don't want to. What you want to do must be something major, considering how terrible your condition is."
The Cleaner pointed at the dark matter on Donnie's body, visible only to gods, with a look of disgust. "I think everything you want to do has something to do with this damned stuff."
"That's not wrong. To resolve the terrible consequences the Great Darkness brought me, I have to respond." Donnie was very calm.
"Good luck. No, I should wish good luck to every weak being other than you."
The Cleaner sighed and patted Donnie's shoulder pityingly.
He was not pitying Donnie. He was pitying himself, now ordinary again, along with all the other lower lifeforms.
No matter what Donnie intended to do, he could kill