Ash. Ash was all that remained.
A boy, no older than fifteen, stood amidst a sea of all-consuming flames. His hands were wracked with pain, singed and scarred by the violent ocean that surrounded him. He felt the burns across his body, sustained in his attempt to dig out some semblance of the home he lost from beneath its smoldering remains, but there was no emotional connection to that pain. No sorrow, no grief, no anger. He felt nothing. He had never felt anything. Such was his fate.
“I’m going to kill him,” the boy said calmly under his breath. “I’m going to burn him to ashes.”
No tears, no regret. The boy stood up and surveyed his surroundings. Everything was gone. His house, his belongings, his family, all of it was buried under layers of charred rubble. How the boy survived was beyond him, but the flames had not yet claimed his life.
A spectral hand grazed his shoulder before settling down upon it, attached to a harrowed, shadowy figure.
“Don’t worry child, I’m sure you will,” the figure said. It’s voice was deep and hollow, akin to that of a withering corpse.
The boy clenched his hand. His blunted fingernails dug through his seared and ashen skin. More pain, but still not enough pain. There was no amount of pain that could drown out the cacophony of volatile voices orbiting throughout his feeble, malformed mind. Those voices, things like regret, despair, anguish, they were all detached from his reality, he ignored them like he always had. He wanted to ignore them. As his nails dug further, he felt the dead, blackened skin flake from his palm and fall to the ground. Blood ran down to his knuckles through the barren, dried-out landscape of his fingers.
“I can help with that, however,” the voice behind him said. “All you need to do is ask.”
“I don’t need your help,” the boy replied. “I don’t want it, either. You’ll only get in my way, that’s all anyone ever does.”
“Can you really blame them though? If you were able to do everything you wanted to do, your parents would have been dead a long time ago.”
The boy turned around. The figure was an elderly man wearing a black suit and top-hat. His eyes were a crimson red and burned with an otherworldly fire. He carried a gilded cane adorned with the image of a devil, a revolting horned face that not even a Father could love.
“Your eyes say it all, child,” the man in black said. “It’s not that you hated them or even that they hurt you, you just knew it would be better off if they were dead, at least from your perspective.”
“I would never have killed them.”
“What was stopping you?”
The boy paused. He turned away again. He thought about the answer to that question, or rather the fact that the answer was now completely invalidated by the scene that was painted before him. Where was God in the world where his home was a pile of burnt rubble and incinerated bodies?
“I was afraid,” the boy replied.
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid of hell.”
The man could say nothing more, he took his hand off of the boy’s shoulder and stepped away. The boy was right to be afraid of that terrible place, a place not meant for any mortal soul, a place where not even the faintest of divine light would be able to touch him, none except for that of her wings, the wings of the machine that swallows demons.
“But this is hell, isn’t it?” The boy asked. “This is what I’ve always feared, this is what I’ve dreaded for the longest time.”
The man stayed silent. It was not his place to lie, and telling the truth would gain him nothing.
“There is no hell anymore, there is no pain.” The boy stretched out his arms to encompass everything he could see and beyond. A wicked smile twisted across his demented, adolescent face. “it was all lie. Even with my greatest fear in front of me I still feel nothing.”
“I can give you the power to make this hell your own, to twist this world in whatever way you deem fit,” the man said. “All I ask is that you use it, that you allow my power to become an extension of your will.”
As the boy showed his face to him once again, the man almost felt a modicum of shame, he almost felt a small bit of remorse for the real hell that this boy’s life would become…
…almost.
He looked so innocent and pure in those last few moments of humanity. He might have been redeemable before he asked that question.
“Can I use it to kill him?”
“You can do with it whatever you want.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
The man extended his hand towards the boy. The boy reached out his own withered, bleeding, disintegrating husk of a hand to accept the man’s gesture of goodwill. As the two hands made contact, the boy’s hands crackled a bit, and his skin began to flake up once more. The man feigned a wince on instinct. The boy still felt nothing.
“Might I ask what your name is, child?”
“Blaise. My name is Blaise.”
“That’s a fitting name, Blaise…”
[ 00:29:01 ]
Blaise draws Ronin’s katana.
[ 00:29:00 ]
Blaise severs Brooklyn’s right arm.
[ cut to: brooklyn ]
It was instantaneous. There was no room for reaction. One second Blaise stood ready to strike, the next he had landed his blow. Now, he was behind me; I couldn’t see him. Was this one of my eyes at work? No, out of the eyes I don’t possess, only the Eye of Unwinding could allow him to travel at this speed, and that was possessed by... the boy... Ash... This is pure speed, raw movement at its most basic.
My dismembered arm seemed to fall in slow motion compared to my opponent’s sudden burst of movement. I could repair my body with spiritual energy, by reconnecting my soul to the severed arm, but my wounds themselves won’t heal.
= pause =
I go to pick up my arm and affix it to the stump that was left-
Blaise’s sword, wreathed in flames, swung for my neck, free from the shackles of time. I dodged backwards, narrowly avoiding it, but for once in my existence, panic set in. Perhaps it was because of the body I inhabited, or maybe my incomplete nature, but the possibility that this human creature could violate my stopped time was enough to inspire a minute, creeping fear that had bubbled to the surface. How? How can he move?
I watch for a moment. He stands perfectly still now that his swing has resolved. My arm should be functional now, albeit not nearly as effective. The wound from the strike was instantly cauterized by sheer speed, if I ignore it for a second, I’ll lose my arm again. I’ll be fighting mostly with one hand from now on, not that it really matters. The most threatening force these humans have, or rather had, at their disposal was the cripple who could damage my eyes, they stand no chance at this point.
While I could kill him in my stopped time, where’s the fun in that? Moreover, my time is running out, this girl’s body will die if I overuse the Eye of Halting. Her affinity with it is quite low compared to my previous, failed vessel, who could utilize it for well over a minute.
= resume =
I focus my perception on Blaise, watching each step of his movement and breaking it down by motion rather than time. He leans in and jaunts forward. This movement isn’t natural, his position shifts independently of his step. He then strikes.
= pause =
I dodge back. His strike continues into my stopped time. After his swing ends, he halts. Every movement was direct, absolutely intentional, and it happened within a fraction of a second. I can’t maintain this ability for long enough to kill him at this point. I slow every part of my body, leaving just my ability to think.
His pact is with a demon of flame. His sword is a relic with a demon stored inside, one that gives its wielder a heightened ability to dodge incoming attacks. There’s no reason for this sword to grant him this instantaneous movement, and his eyes have no unique spiritual footprint. This must be related to his pact, somehow. Fire is the consumption of oxygen to create energy in the form of heat, but his ability just allows him to directly manipulate heat without needing that reaction. Hence, he can condense the heat in a given area around a person to ignite their internal organs. I’ve seen him do that before, two years ago.
Heat is energy, the movement of atoms of molecules at a rapid rate... movement. The true nature of his pact, the concept it embodies, is not fire itself. His ability is heat, the transfer of kinetic energy. On technicality, stopping time is simply speeding up the movement of everything for me in particular. It stands to reason that if Blaise is trying to directly move his body through a given path instantaneously, the processes might overlap and cancel each-other out. If that movement is pre-programmed, it can be executed at the same time I move at an infinitely fast speed. Hence, it appears that he can move within my stopped time.
With that, I understand you now, Blaise Abner. There is no way for me to truly defeat you. You will easily outpace me outside of stopped time, and this body limits my ability to function within. It’s a near-guarantee that I won’t be able to just wait out your next attack, which means I have to deal with you now. It’s a pity, really, you of all people might be the only living thing I cannot reasonably kill.
The Eye of Halting doesn’t just allow me to stop time, to move at an infinite speed. It allows me to reduce the speed of an area, to make it impenetrably locked in place. In combat, this is the ultimate stalemate, and it requires me to give up the one trump card I have against the rest of you humans. Thankfully, this body can maintain it for at least an hour, likely more.
= resume =
Blaise lunges again. I take a false step to the left before jumping back. In that split second, I activate the Eye of Halting. Congratulations, human, you alone have bested me.
A hole in space swallows up Blaise, absorbing all light. A pitch-black orb, a space that reflects nothing, is what remains. My eye burns, it continues to burn. While it doesn’t pain my spirit, my body is taxed. Moreover, I cannot use the Eye of Halting unless I end the stasis field here.
[ 00:25:44 ]
The train pulls into the station. The target enters.
[ cut to: brooklyn ]
As I enter into the suspiciously near-empty train car, one human catches my eye.
His figure is feminine, but his outfit is purely utilitarian, a white dress shirt and black pants. I’m not used to him dressing like this, perhaps he’s grown to express himself more since we last crossed paths. This mortal animal is the one who freed my previous vessel, the one who self-sacrificially bound a thousand demons to himself to save the woman he so loved, the woman whose eye I tore out, pity.
That misguided action, his great sacrifice, it will now be his undoing. Once I kill him, I can unleash the spirits he has bound to him and destroy this world, I can bring about the end. After that, all I have to do is reclaim the half of my soul possessed by that Ash boy and I will have fulfilled my purpose. It all ends here.
[ chapter end ]