Ashton stood at the edge of a frozen lake. Despite it being the middle of summer, the lake was still frozen. Perhaps the Grim Reaper’s mere presence was enough to terrify the water into stillness.

In his hand, Ashton grasped a weapon, a sword that didn’t belong to him. The sword was left behind by a former ally, the same ally whose eye he now possessed. He barely knew this ally, but this man, the modern-day samurai, put his trust in Ashton. Everyone had put their trust in Ashton, he was their last hope.

Standing across from him was an angel, a mechanical woman bearing a scythe of blinding light. Her hair was the same color as her scythe, but her eyes were so black they pushed the reflected moon’s gleam to their center. This angel, no, it would be more apt to call her a demon, was unstoppable.

She had killed everyone Ashton knew, Brooklyn, his sister, Claire, those were the only people he cared about. This wasn’t about saving anyone or anything, this was about revenge, this was about making sure the being he stood before could never exist to begin with.

Ashton took the sheath off of his sword and dropped it to the floor. It clattered across the ice.

“Angel of Death, Grim Reaper, whatever you are” Ashton said, his voice echoing across the silent battleground, “you’ve killed anyone who ever gave a damn about me. I’m going to pay that back. Try and stop me.”

“What makes you think you stand a chance, sinner?” The angel replied. “You’re no better than the rest of your kind, filled with hate and violence. I’ll cut you down, they’ll never remember you.”

“I know I can’t kill you” Ashton said, “but you can’t kill me either.”

“We’ll see about that.”

In the blink of an eye, the angel was right in front of him. She had charged in an instant, faster than Ashton could comprehend, but not faster than he could react. Holding his blade in two hands, Ashton slashed forward. His mind echoed a single word.

Cut.

The sword that now belonged to him followed his will, slicing his opponent in two. The spirit recovered, reassembling midair, but she failed her initial onslaught, leaving Ashton untouched.

“What?” The angel exclaimed. “That’s-“

Ashton never heard her; his entire attention was focused on his next move. Pivoted to face his opponent and stepped forward, holding his weapon high. As he brought the blade down, he directed his inherited power to charge on, painting his mind with the image of his enemy sliced in twain once more. His sword would never reach, but the Grim Reaper’s eyes defy all logic and reason.

Cut.

The strike connected, grazing the angel of death. While this spirit could dodge any ordinary sword with ease, what assaulted her was no blade. This was the power of her own eye made manifest in a boy with nothing to lose.

“This is my fault, isn’t it?” The spirit said, her wounds regenerating. “That mark I gave you, the connection to form a vessel, it’s made you stronger. No human should be able to do what you’re doing.”

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Ashton continued to ignore his opponent. Testing the limits of his power, he imagined the space between him and the angel as a single line, and then in his mind…

Cut.

Just as predicted. Ashton was in range.

Cut.

Across the angel’s neck. This time the sword really did connect. Blood spurted from the wound. A machine that bleeds, a paradoxical existence.

This time, the wound didn’t heal. The angel continued to bleed. Ashton’s katana bore the same brilliant white sheen as the angel’s scythe, a result of the Eye of Severing’s power.

The angel’s eye flashed blue. The Eye of Seeing. It was what Ashton had been waiting for.

Cut.

The angel’s eye failed, it now rested in Ashton’s grasp. He had done just as he did with his body earlier, he had teleported it.

The angel dashed backwards.

“No, this is impossible!” The angel said. “I can’t lose to you, to a boy with an oversized knife!”

Her eye flashed yellow. The Eye of Unwinding. She tried to leave this time, but she couldn’t. It was impossible. Every possible timeline she could jump to simply didn’t exist, every ending led to now, the unknown future.

“That’s… No… Even I can’t…“

Cut.

Ashton was right in front of her once again. This time, he had slashed across her eye, stopping her from using it altogether.

“Why you!” The angel of death had lost her composure to a mere human boy. She readied her scythe to attack him, beginning her swing in less than a second.

Cut.

The scythe shattered. Ashton had cut through it.

There the angel of death stood, her neck and eye bleeding, her weapon gone. She summoned another scythe, there was no limit to that ability.

“What I want to know is how; how did you stop my Eye of Unwinding?!”

Ashton was already charging towards her. She didn’t even have a second before another strike would land. That’s when it dawned on her, what that stupid boy did.

“There’s no way He let you…”

Cut.

Straight through the angel’s heart, Ashton’s blade pierced.

“You’re so lucky… He wanted me to lose this time…”

Yet again, Ashton never heard a word. The angel coughed up a mouthful of blood. It didn’t matter how invincible she was, there was no way for her to win. The one-in-a-million chance that this boy struck the killing blow was the only possible outcome. This was because he cut through all of the other ones.

“Free will?... What’s that?” The angel continued to speak unheard words. “You humans were never meant to be free…”

Cut.

It was less a physical cut, but more a cut across the spiritual dimension. Ashton tore Brooklyn’s soul from the Grim Reaper’s body. It was among a thousand souls of those she had trapped across her years as the guide of the deal. Every soul was released, but Brooklyn’s had no home any longer.

“All of that was for her? Laughable… Truly, the lengths you humans go for such trivial things…”

Cut.

The first eye was removed from the angel of death’s skull. The Eye of Turning.

“You… can’t… stop… me…”

Cut.

The second eye was removed from the angel of death’s skull. The Eye of Ending.

“I… am… eternity…”

Cut.

The third eye was removed from the angel of death’s skull. The Eye of Unwinding. The angel of death fell to the ground, eyeless, powerless. She never even bothered to use her power to mark Ashton for death, her arrogance was her downfall.

Ashton screamed as he tore his own eyes out and replaced them with the Eye of Seeing and the Eye of Unwinding. He knew that he had to take the yellow one, but he took the blue one as well. He didn’t know why, but that eye was the one he needed to choose.

After committing the act, Ashton knelt down, covering his new eyes. They burned as they fused to his sockets, assimilating into his body. There was probably a more elegant way to induct the eyes of the Grim Reaper, but Ashton didn’t care. He was beyond the time for thought.

Once he could see again, Ashton’s eyes burned with a new pain. He used the Eye of Unwinding to go back, to stop this all from happening. How far he went back even he didn’t know for certain, some three thousand years ago when the Angel of Death was first fractured. He took with him only Brooklyn’s soul, on its way to find its new home.

[ c/ut ]