Second Genesis

Void Gaze.

Sir Ovaal froze mid stride, his built up energy exploding within him aimlessly. The backlash was small, and the pause was even smaller. But it might as well have been an eternity.

He could only watch as Grey’s thumb sharpened with black claws, pressing down Terran’s helm from five sides in a seemingly random manner, and shattered the protective coating.

Grey ripped it off his head, and stabbed his saber right through Terran’s mouth, splitting his lips lengthwise as though to carve a smile into his face.

However, he didn’t go all the way. He could have severed Terran’s spine in a single thrust, but he didn’t do so.

Grey hadn’t come here just to kill Terran. He had come here to make him feel pain, and that very pain seemed to wake Terran from his concussion, his eyes widening as blood seeped down his chin and drenched him through.

Sir Ovaal regained control of his body, but this time, he didn’t dare to move.

"Grey... please calm down, you can’t do this."

Grey didn’t even look at him, his eyes were looking down at the kneeling Terran. His very gaze itself had become a smoldering abyss of darkness and red, the world painted in nothing but lines of blood and greys.

He reached down, pulling on Terran’s head as though he was a rag doll. The city fell into a silence, not that Grey could tell the difference. The only thing he had been able to hear for a long time now was the beating of his own heart.

Everything else had fallen away. Even his own voice seemed to ring out into an empty abyss.

"Why did you kill Memm."

It wasn’t even a question, and with a saber in his mouth, Terran couldn’t have replied with words even if he wanted to.

"Why did you kill Globb."

The speed of Grey’s second "question" only proved as much. He didn’t care about an answer at all.

BOOM.

The ground shook and Sir Ovaal looked over to see that Sir Trolley had arrived.

"Where have you been?! Stop your disciple! NOW!" Sir Ovaal was in a panic. It was like he was already seeing flashes of the end of the city as they knew it.

Sir Trolley was drenched in sweat. He had been locked away in the church, finishing up the last of Grey’s lesson plan. The church was so perfectly isolated from everywhere else that this amount of destruction didn’t even leave the slightest blemish on it.

The library itself was even more protected as the knowledge it stored was invaluable. He had been in a private room and hadn’t felt any fluctuations at all.

By the time he got out and thought to check what Giyoto could have occupied his disciple so much with, it was already too late. It felt like if he was any later, either Grey, Terran, or maybe even both would be dead.

There was no way that Ovaal could do nothing if Grey killed Terran. At the very least, in hopes of Terran’s father and grandfather not being enraged, they would have to give them Grey’s head, and then maybe accept a massacre. Only then would the fury of the Valdi be satiated.

But looking at Grey now, Edmun had no idea if he could even get the young man to stop what he was doing.

"Grey..." Edmun tried softly, but Grey didn’t even look at him either.

They had been master and disciple for too little time. There was no great relationship between them, and even if there had been, it was hard to say if it would have made a difference at all.

Edmun sighed and then straightened up. He looked at Terran whose mouth had been split wide, his tongue cut into ribbons as blood pooled and then toppled out of his open mouth.

Who knew how many in the city wanted to see this exact sight, but not one of them dared to actually do it. The price was too high, and too few of them actually could.

Edmun had no idea how Grey had managed it, but when he saw the tendrils of crimson, his heart skipped a beat.

’Dark Kin?’

Confusion and hesitancy painted Edmun’s eyes. Unfortunately for Grey, a shallow relationship cut both ways. If he wasn’t going to listen to Edmun, then it was hard for Edmun to give him the benefit of the doubt too.

However, Edmun quickly dismissed the thoughts that painted Terran in the best of lights. If Terran had only targeted Grey because he thought the latter might have been a Dark Kin, he would have said as much. Who wouldn’t listen to him given his standing?

Edmun closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again.

"Grey, do what you want. But make sure it’s you swinging that blade."

Grey blinked and for the first time, he seemed to hear what was happening around him. He looked at the old knight, turning his head away from Terran.

For a long while, a silence hung on the world to the point it grew almost old and ancient. Ovaal didn’t say a word, feeling that he might make things worse if he did. He didn’t know what sort of strategy Edmun was trying here, but he was hoping the reverse psychology worked.

None of them could afford this, not in the slightest bit.

What he didn’t know was that Edmun wasn’t trying to use reverse psychology at all.

He might not have known Grey for long, but the boy he knew was always smiling, always joking around, always ready to be the wise guy. This wasn’t Grey.

If Grey was going to kill Terran, fine. But it had better be Grey who did it and not whatever dark tendrils were winding around him now.

Their gazes met and a spark of red gold ember flashed from Grey’s mechanical jaw as he grinned.

"You’re right, old man. If I don’t have a shit eating grin on my face while I put another fuck hole in his skull, it wouldn’t be nearly as fun."

Grey looked back toward Terran who hadn’t even dared to move a muscle.

"See you in hell, pussy."

Terran’s eyes widened, garbled begging and slobber spilling out of his mouth.

Grey thrust his saber through the rest of his throat.

Puchi.