"What!? You shouldn't be able to move your body!"
Frightened of the mercenary's growing power, Orus wielded his sword with both hands and tried to plunge it into Noir's chest. However, Noir's arms recovered and overcame his strength with ease. Orus began to tremble. Noir stopped the sword with his bare hands, ignoring that his palms were bleeding.
"This can't be happening... What kind of monster are you!? No human can recover from such wounds! You should be dead!"
"I will not die... Not yet..."
The sword shattered into pieces in Noir's hands. Orus recoiled stupefied, and received a blow equal to or stronger than the one Noir received before. His ribs cracked, and his lungs filled with blood. Noir grabbed him before he fell to the ground, only to break his jaw and punch his stomach with fury.
"I know that's not enough to kill you. I won't be able to control myself much longer, so answer my question quickly... What the hell are you? Why do you have the same power as me?"
Stunned, Orus clutched at Noir and spat blood. "We come from the same place... We are not from this world, though this is our home now. Where have you been all this time? I have never seen one of our people outside of Gelesar... It is strange that you know nothing about yourself. We are..."
The boy did not resist the bleeding and fell to his knees. When Noir tried to pick him up, the young man struck him a blow to the chest with so much force that his own arm broke. Orus laughed and the mercenary collapsed covering his chest.
"You fool... You don't even know your own weaknesses. We cannot die unless our heads are cut off or our hearts are destroyed. Now good luck recovering from that blow."
Wolf paced back and forth, frustrated that he couldn't help Noir. "Shit, I think that monster took Noir down. Cerberus! Can't you get rid of this bloody fire?" The group leader asked in desperation.
"No, I'm afraid not. This fire is not normal. It's not something you see often, even among wizards. I believe the fire persists because of dark magic." Everyone was surprised to hear that. In view of the fact that they could not go through the fire directly, the assassins ran to a high place to reach the target with their bows and crossbows.
Orus watched the mercenaries leave, just as he expected. Both his flesh and bones returned to normal in the blink of an eye. The intensity of his magic grew enough to create another sword. Meanwhile, Noir was still writhing on the ground.
"My wounds have already healed. However, you... I doubt your heart can recover from that blow." Orus walked over to the dying man, but this time he kept his distance. He preferred to let someone else finish the job, so he handed the sword to one of his limbs. It quickly extended to Noir's neck. "This fight is absurd, but we are not the ones who caused it. In the old days, we demons used to help each other. Now... we only know how to kill our own people. I find it hard to believe that you would do all this just for a few coins."
"No... It's not just about the money..." Orus opened his eyes wide as he heard Noir speak. His heart was still struggling to survive, so his inner power went to great lengths to give him a chance. The black tissue coursed through his body once more and granted him the strength he needed to stand up. The rising flames reduced all the vegetation around him to ashes. Countless limbs ripped through his flesh to defend their host. Such an amount of pain fuelled the mercenary's dark power, but it also drove him from his sanity. Even his grey irises disappeared as his eyes were injected with that cursed power. "I warned you... I will no longer be able to control my actions... No one will..."
Orus' fear was reflected in his trembling arms, unable to give the order to execute Noir. The two shared the same power, the same nature, but they were far from being on the same level. Merely to raise his sword against such a beast was to beg to be slain.
"My head... I can't stand the pain!" Noir's shout caused his dark limbs to multiply uncontrollably and attack the young boy. Orus tried to defend himself with his own limbs, but the increasing number of attacks he had to block was simply beyond him. Behind the barrage of attacks Noir watched, on the ground, anxious for it to be over and done with. "I'm sorry... I'm not a monster... But I have to do it...!"
The limbs suddenly disappeared, and instead Noir jumped towards Orus, engulfed in flames. The kid was able to dodge the mercenary's punch by moving to the side, but before he could process what had happened Noir jumped at him again. Small blades of solid miasma surrounded his fist. Using the brute strength his power gave him, he slashed through Orus' stomach from one end to the other and lifted him up a few inches to slam him violently to the ground. The big brother was close to being knocked unconscious, the only thing keeping him awake was his desperation to protect his family.
"I'm not a monster, you are! Unlike you, I don't have to hide from the world in a musty cave! We are not the same... We are not..."
The bloodlust had blinded him completely. Once he pulled his arm out of the boy's entrails they both knew the fight was over. The young man looked one last time towards the cave, towards his family. He reached out his hand to beg them to escape, but the words would not come out of his mouth.
"Did we... only come to this world to suffer...? Did fate bring us here... to destroy us...? It is not fair... It is not..." A limb pierced Orus' heart and ended his agony. But Noir's curse did not disappear. It still held complete sway over him. Once the older brother was dead, his eyes looked back to the cave.
"Noir, thank goodness you're all right! We couldn't shoot the beast, sorry!"
Jane and the others returned with Noir as Orus' flames were extinguished. Aside from the mercenary, the fire revealed the mutilated body of the young exile. Everyone was surprised to see that he was only a child, even Wolf. He was far from the mindless Lycanthrope they thought him to be.
"Noir... Are you okay?" Jane tried to get closer to him. Noir's eyes lit up again. Wolf and Cerberus suggested her to back away.
"No... That wasn't the only one. They're not Lycanthropes like you said, Wolf... They're much worse." Noir stood up and walked slowly towards the cave. He knew something was watching him behind the bushes, but he continued to shuffle his bloody feet through the grass. He took an arrow to the shoulder and another to the knee, but he kept walking. The weak magic of that family disintegrated next to his own, which was far more dense. "I will end this... I will..."
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Behind the bushes he found Nina and her mother. The little girl was hiding behind the woman, who pointed a bow made of magic at the mercenary in terror. Noir did not hesitate, and kept walking. Both retreated without taking the bow away from his chest. They retreated so far that they returned to the cave, where the woman finally prepared to shoot at Noir. But it took only a few seconds for the arrow to disappear from his body.
"Of course I'm not like you... My power far exceeds yours." Noir paused as he had the exiles cornered against the altar of the late father of the family. Nina began to cry and the mother gave up, throwing down her bow.
"Please don't kill us... We just wanted to survive. We know it wasn't the right thing to do, but we don't deserve this! At least forgive my daughter. She hasn't done anything."
Before receiving an answer, Noir separated her head from her body with one of his limbs. The girl began to scream and threw several clumps of dark magic that did nothing but annoy Noir.
"Don't make it worse... Or the limbs will tear you apart..."
Nina ran to hide behind her father's altar. "Why are you doing this to us!? Why do we have to die...?"
"Why? Don't act as if your life is worth the same as that of a human... You are parasites, little less than a plague! You deserve to be eradicated."
"But you're also a demon! Look at your body! You should help us... Not kill us."
"No! I'm a human! I've always been!"
Noir clenched his head tightly with both hands; he could feel the curse consuming his humanity. Deep inside he wanted to stop his limbs from committing an atrocity, but he was no longer the ruler of his body. His will was irrelevant in all of that.
"I have to stop them... I can't go on with this madness..."
The limbs grew in length and number and tried to reach Nina. Noir broke through the mental barriers of the curse and grabbed one of his limbs in a banal attempt to stop them. He was able to tear one off, but he couldn't take that many. If he wanted to save Nina, he would have to make his body listen to him.
"Those weren't even my words.... It was like someone else was speaking for me. I have to regain control!" Noir exclaimed in his mind, as his audible words differed from what he actually thought. With serious doubts about what would happen he unsheathed one of his swords and wielded it backwards, the tip facing his stomach. "If I weaken enough I may not have enough energy left to maintain this power and the limbs may be gone... I hope so!"
The dark tentacles surrounded Nina from all angles, and she could barely materialise a knife to defend herself. The sharp limbs lurked for the moment when the girl would expose her weak points. Nina and Noir closed their eyes at the same time, and the young mercenary wounded himself with his own blade. It wasn't two or three thrusts; Noir was able to muster the courage to pierce his own stomach more than eight times. So much blood was spilled that he threw the sword to one of his limbs and fell to his knees.
The tentacles collapsed to the ground and turned to ashes. They disappeared in a short time along with all traces of magic in Noir. All that remained was the blood on his hands, the blood of a family. He couldn't take his eyes off his hands.
"I'm not like Wolf or Cerberus... I can't do it. They're demons, but..." He turned his head to the side, crying, where the mother's body rested. He looked at Nina again, though he could only see her black hair from behind. She reminded him of someone he knew very well. "They're just like us. Trying to survive... What have they done to us to make us hate them so much?"
The girl opened her eyes once she realised nothing happened. The person who had killed her family was crying on his knees, totally defeated. "What's going on...? Why are you crying?"
Noir watched his wounds heal and looked at Nina in shame. "Because you're just like me. I lost my family too when I was just a kid, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. The last thing I want is to live knowing I did the same thing to someone else... but I'll have to."
With an idea in mind, Noir grabbed a branch from the campfire and peeked out to check where his companions were.
"The other mercenaries are waiting for me to return. If they see you with me, they'll probably want to kill you. So what you're going to do is hide behind the bushes until nightfall. I'll set fire to the cave and pretend I've finished the job. Then you can escape when no one is around. Do you understand me?"
The girl shook her head in complete confusion. "Just... Why? Why are you helping me?"
"You can hate me all you want, that's your right. I'm the monster who murdered your family, don't doubt that for a second. But please... You have to live. Too many lives have been wasted today for yours to end the same way. I'm truly sorry." Nina looked back at her parents. Her heart filled with hatred, but she couldn't hate the person who was helping her. With mixed feelings, Nina looked at Noir with her grey eyes full of resentment and tears.
"Fine... I'll wait until nightfall. But I'll never forget what you did. I hope you suffer the same as we have suffered. Then you'll understand what it means to be a demon in this world."
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A few minutes later.
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"Hey, Noir. Are you okay? You look a little pale."
"I'm fine, Jane. Thanks for asking. It's just... I've seen too much blood for today. Now I just want to go home and be with Evie."
"It doesn't seem like blood is the only thing on your mind. Is something bothering you?"
Noir hesitated on what to answer his leader. "I was surprised that those demons could be so savage. They are like us in looks, but they don't think for a second about what it means to take other lives. Besides, they are cowards. The other two males in the cave sent the younger one to fight me. It's really disgusting."
"Yeah... I guess it is. Demons aren't known for being exemplary citizens, after all. I think we've done King Paymon a favour and all. What are you thinking, Cerberus?"
"I'm thinking that kid had some pretty similar powers to those of Noir. I've never seen a demon before and I only know he was thanks to Noir, but he could regenerate, he knew how to use dark magic and poison didn't affect him. Could that be the source of your strange powers, Noir?" Everyone looked at the young man at that moment.
"T-that's impossible. My parents were human. I never had anything to do with any demons. There has to be another explanation."
Noir was grateful that they finally arrived at the farm to stop talking about demons. The contractor, as agreed, was waiting with four bags brimming with coins. Wolf gladly received them and carried them in his arms, concluding their mission.
"Excellent... Ah yes, we have brought you a small gift to see for yourself the outcome of the mission." Cerberus showed off Orus' head, which remained transformed even after his death, as if it were nothing. Noir, Jane and the farmer were horrified. Wolf let out a laugh at their reactions. "Well, we're done here. I suggest you get your barn fixed up as soon as possible. It's going to be a rough winter this year."
"So long, contractor." Cerberus said goodbye leaving the head in the farmer's hands. The old man saw the last expression that was plastered on the face of the so-called Lycanthrope. It was an expression of pain and misery hard to forget.
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Several days later.
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Noir watched the sunset through the windows of a tavern. Beside him drank Wayne, totally oblivious to his worries. The boy was restless, for he couldn't stop stirring his beer and shaking his legs. What had happened at the farm was not going to leave his mind for a long time.
"Well, tell me, what's bothering you? I doubt you called me for nothing. Does it have to do with the guild?" Noir nodded but didn't say anything else. "I knew it. I knew something was going to happen. Now are you going to listen to me and leave that guild once and for all?"
"No, that's not going to happen. It's about the last mission we did. I crossed a line I shouldn't have crossed. Both my powers and my insecurities drove me to commit an unforgivable act, totally against justice... Or so I believe. My perception is no longer clear." Noir didn't take his eyes off the ground, and even brought his hands to his head and straightened his hair. "I killed a young demon and his mother, and I almost killed a girl. I couldn't think clearly about it at the time, but now... It doesn't matter what they did. They didn't deserve that."
"Noir..." Wayne put his beer aside. "How did it happen?"
"A farmer requested our help in taking down a supposed werewolf. I went ahead and found their hideout. There was no werewolf, just a family of demons desperate to survive. The father was already dead. The mother recognised me and the boy attacked me to defend his family. I was afraid to find out more about them because... I am just like them. I have the same powers and the same appearance. They all had grey eyes and dark hair. Why, Wayne? Did you know about that? Did you know I'm a demon?"
"You're not a demon, son. You know perfectly well that your parents were human. The powers of a race are not always inherited. Sometimes... they are gained by other unusual means."
"You're lying. You're lying to protect me. But I know there's something weird behind all this." His head ached. The young man put his head on the table to shelter himself from people's stares. Wayne sighed and took a big gulp from his mug.
"But you said you didn't kill the girl. What happened to her?"
"I was incapable of hurting her... She reminded me of me the day my father died. I tricked Wolf and the others and let her run away. At least I was able to do something decent. Something a human being would do."
"Oh, no... Did they say anything about being exiled from Gelesar?" Perplexed by the accuracy of his question, Noir nodded. "I'm sorry to say this, but there are no exiles on Gelesar, only fugitives. Those who escape the city against the laws covenanted after the holy war are hunted down and executed. If those demons were outside Gelesar and were able to confront you with their powers, it means that they refused to remove their Born Power. Those who refuse treatment are considered criminals, regardless of their age or gender. That girl won't live long out there."
Noir stared into nothingness. A single tear fell down his face. "So I have unknowingly condemned another person... And now I may be haunted for the same thing. Damn it... Now I just want to die."