"One thousand years ago, a cataclysmic war between the many races of Takera and the Void's Demons raged to no known end: Humans, Demi-Humans, Fae... A glorious effort of people's combined arms to destroy these wretched beings and set our world free."

It was a tale as old as time: a recount of calamity, and a subject of study for those even as young as Kyoya. Here it was, being told again, by the same man who'd recited that verse to him a hundred times before.

A mountain of an enemy loomed before him—one he'd hoped to never face, and one whose might stood to challenge any and all. Smoldering heat had scorched the boy's voice to a rasp, and as surrounding blazes burned far too fiercely to relent, even his speaking came at the cost of precious time.

"This doesn't have anything to do with me, Oberon! You'd have known if it did!" Kyoya snapped. However, the sharpness of his words betrayed the panic in his actions. His heels pushed dirt and debris into a sure fall behind him, and he clutched a bloodied arm and stood hunched before the enemy; meanwhile, a wispy shroud of meager blue fire accompanied his feeble stance.

"Spare me the trouble of your magic, Kyoya. We've dawdled here for long enough."

As much as the burning stung, the chorus of chaos erupting from the city below them tore even deeper into his nerves. Establishments standing for years were razed to rubble, with civilians being whisked away far below. The boy shuffled unsure steps into the edge of the castle's stone balcony, forced to listen as the only thing he was ever meant to protect was mercilessly laid to waste... and now, he was to blame.

The sounds wormed their way into his core; they echoed a grim confirmation that every manner of citizen was in peril. There was no discrimination based on rank or place—to Demons, all were fair game for annihilation.

Kyoya mustered the courage to step forward, only to be looked down upon by Oberon's ghoulish gold glare. The man's eyes gleamed in the fiery desolation of their kingdom, but rather than burning with rage, his being was smothered by anguish.

"As of today, I alone stand between the Denizen's workings and His delivery of a calamity upon the Overworld..." he announced.

He cast a wide, surveying look about the balcony—and, by extension, Teleo as a whole—and let off a breath infested with uncertainty. His words morphed into something brutal and callous, as though unbothered by beating his former pupil into the ground only moments before. "He felled the Lady Takera, our Heavenly Mother! He heralds an intention to bring about the Great Schism once more! For years, I dreamed of a day where I would stand against this ancient evil alongside you!"

There was something akin to grief strewn across his face as he peered upon his domain: a strained expression, nodding to a terrible cocktail of confusion and heartache. "I'd hoped that even if Sera wouldn't see the fruits of our efforts, you could still join me in seeing it through!"

The boy's heart shot into his throat at the mere mention of that name.

"Why...—?" Kyoya stammered, raising his watery eyes to meet those of the enemy. "Why would you bring her into this!?"

Between gritted teeth, he stared daggers at the boy with vicious, unapolagetic scorn. "Because, Kyoya, I cannot fathom what awful wrongs I have committed to be graced by the Mother, only to be told that you stand at the epicenter of His wretched schemes!"

Through tears, fatigue, and a quivering lip, Kyoya lurched forward around the hulking opponent's first swing. The armored fist smashed into rugged stone, kicking up shattered bricks in tow. One blow was dodged, but Oberon's rampage of punches upon his feeble target continued. "Nearly a decade of my mortal life, Kyoya! I've devoted my entire being to shaping you and your sister into the Reclaimers you sought to be, and even after she sacrificed her life, you would use my support to make a deal with the Devil!?"

Between every block, every dodge, and every crippling blow, the boy forced croaks and gasps out in an attempt to form words. They were frantic and awfully frail, staggered by the baleful lump in his throat, but they were words nonetheless.

"You're wrong!" The boy wheezed, taking the brunt of a punch by blocking with crossed forearms. Amidst the struggle to push back, he continued, "If I were involved with Demons, you'd have known! You're a Duke! The church would've been the first to notice, and they'd have gone straight to you!"

Oberon's harrowing statement plagued his mind, dredging up even more questions. "The Mother..."

Time slowed to a crawl as those wayward thoughts strung themselves into a million more weightless theories. "Takera, the one with the world's namesake—She thinks I'm connected to this!? To Demons invading Teleo!?"

His stance grew fractured, forcing him down to one knee. "What did I do wrong? What happened?"

In the time it took to pace over those thoughts, his block was shattered completely. "...Why?"

Impact craters formed at Kyoya's feet as a result of the mountainous force standing against him. He was blasted several feet backward, rolling to a skidding halt. That obscene clanging of metal greaves upon the stone balcony soon resumed in another journey toward him.

Sickening, shrill thuds echoed into the sky of a night set ablaze. The boy wrenched himself up a second time, but quivering limbs kept him from even rising past another hunch. His entire body shook with uncontrollable dread, worsened still by the sudden onset of terror.

Tunnel vision forced his gaze to fall upon the approaching adversary. In a response of pure instinct, he pulsed spheres of azure fire into his hands. Their burning cores conveyed his defiant will... Yet, even throwing them with all his might, they barely made it to his target. Oberon simply held the tail of his cape forward and closed the distance.

Every footfall roared like thunder, and with each step came another pitiful volley of fireballs. They left small, charred burnmarks in the cape's material, but Oberon still advanced as if he were an unstoppable force.

"I need you to be truthful with me, Kyoya! I must know how your connection to the Denizen came to be! With that knowledge, I can find a way for Her Grace to look upon you favorably, and perhaps even forgive this transgression!"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

As the boy heaved even more fizzling orbs of flame, his aggressor continued. "So, I'll ask you one more time!"

His cape flared outward, completely dissipating Kyoya's flames with a pressure wave. "Have you any idea—an inkling of a clue—as to why such a grotesque thing as He would ever try to sway you to His side!?"

"I DON'T KNOW!" Kyoya screamed back at the accusation, above roars and cannon fire, through his own ceaseless agony. "Siding with the Denizen? The Mad God? WHAT COULD I EVER DO TO MAKE YOU THINK THAT!?" The boy was only barely scraping into his preteens, now snarling a claim against She whose word was spoken on hallowed breath.

Wavering in his stance, the boy staggered forward as he spoke further. "Oberon, I promise! There's nothing like that—!"

"DO NOT TAKE ME FOR A FOOL, BOY!" The oppressor roared in challenge, raising a contemptuous brow. "The All-Mother's holy word implores me to have you killed! Unless you can prove that such an ill union was born in error, I cannot rightfully defy her wish!"

"If... I have to prove it... to you..." stammered the boy between gasps, "then... you didn't even believe me... in the first place!"

Kyoya gritted his teeth and planted his feet. Yet another surge of heat rolled over his form, with that blazing energy consolidating at his palms once more. The flames took form, but before he could pivot his feet to attack, the enemy made a breakneck dash forward.

He was torn from the ground with his neck in a vice grip, his feet kicking and dangling in the air. Kyoya gurgled a mess of blood and curses, viciously clawing at the man's armored gauntlet in a fruitless bid against his hold. "All I need you to do is explain yourself! I'll surrender my life before I have to watch another one of my students die!"

The boy's eyes widened.

"W-what did... you say?" He dug his nails into the armor's exposed leather, fighting for any kind of grip to hold his eyes to those of the enemy yet again. "What... do you mean... you were there...?" The evening sky had long since been set ablaze in mortifying shades of raging orange and ghastly violet, but not even that could compare to the deranged fury that shot into the boy's eyes.

This fury gave him the strength to pry open a finger or two, making Oberon's eyes widen briefly. "YOU SAID... SHE WAS ALONE!" The look of surprise on Oberon was unmistakable.

"Kyoya, I-...!" stammered the Duke, beginning to backpedal ever so slightly. He threw a series of frantic glances to and fro. Something had shattered his once-unbreakable front. "You know I wouldn't have lost her if I could help it!"

"YOU DID IT! IT'S YOUR FAULT!" The boy thrashed with reckless abandon, slicing his arms on the gauntlet's sharpened metal in a frenzied attempt to break free. He didn't have time to sob as the tears flowed amidst his outrage, kicking at Oberon's chest with what he could move.

Every fiber of Kyoya's being was funneled into ripping himself free from the Duke's grip. Whether it would cost him flesh, blood, sweat, or tears, none of it would be enough to deter this force. He shrieked further through the maelstrom, "YOU LIED! YOU LET HER DIE!"

"Bite your tongue! I stood my ground and fought until every Demon fell! What possesses you to think I would stand idly by while—" Oberon cut off his shouting in another show of pride, muttering curses at such a crass claim. He shook the hesitation and ran rampant with passion once more. "Blast it, yes! I failed to save Sera from His treachery! But I can still keep you from following that fate! I will not lose my only remaining pupil to the Void, damn it all!"

Whatever had come over him in that moment was something dire—something that drove even his own fiery passion to maximum, and it soon accompanied a wave of concealed desperation. "I-... I cannot help you unless you can tell me what went wrong!"

Taking another look around to observe the carnage instilled in betrayal, the man finally glared straight at Kyoya's face, meeting his eyes. "Please, Kyoya! Answer me!"

The waterworks from the boy continued, with no end to his outright, tearful lament.

"I DON'T WANT YOUR HELP, YOU LIAR!" The boy's fighting continued. His heart neared an explosive pulse, pumping hate and adrenaline through his every vein.

Oberon's vice seemed to falter further, and a gleam in the corner of his eyes suggested Kyoya's only chance of survival. "...If this is what you're choosing to do, allow me to stop you."

That glimmer of hope was extinguished in an instant as the man walked forward, until he was holding his former student over the balcony's lip.

"O-...BERON...!" Kyoya made yet another attempt to tear free, but all he did was force up a shaky sigh from his aggressor. A burning sensation crept up the boy's throat as they struggled again.

Oberon's stare was unsightly and uncertain—he completely dodged Kyoya's piercing sapphire glare, now streaked with bloodshot, and hid his face away. He couldn't even look the poor boy in the eyes.

Kyoya looked down; a new stomach-turning sight carved itself into his psyche. His feet dangled above no surface but a concealed void of smoke that completely obscured the city below. As he stared further, the burning in the boy's throat evolved into a frenzied blaze.

The blood and salty tears that pooled in his mouth—the products of his spite, his ire, his grief—fueled a well of obscenity within the core of his being, and if the target of that awful enmity wouldn't take responsibility, then he'd find his own vengeance.

Kyoya's fire seeped from between his clenched teeth, out of view of Oberon's ashamed dismissal. He relaxed his hands and finally established a firm grip on the opponent's solid-iron gauntlets. Oberon cornered a glance at the sudden relief in pressure, but the reaction came at a cost.

In a berserk rage, Kyoya threw his head back and channeled the last cinders of magic left in him straight into his face, an azure inferno billowing from either side of his mouth. Against Oberon's thrashing, he bit down and crunched straight through the gauntlet's metal.

Tempered steel tore into his mouth, but it wasn't deterrent enough to keep him from cleaving through the leather and padding below.

It was his fractured teeth meeting bone that finally stopped the incision.

A pungent, metallic taste overflowed his mouth, both from ripping into the armor and the blood rushing in. Oberon flailed his arm enough to break the vice of Kyoya's jaws, but in doing so, the boy was flung forward.

"Kyoya!" the Duke roared once more, scrambling forward after realizing his error.

Kyoya sailed into the air for just long enough to see Oberon tripping over himself in an attempt to reach out his hand.

He didn't take it.

The smoke took him instead.