JULY 23rd, 2014.

Keith drags Seth down multiple identical hallways, twisting and turning until they finally reach the training hall area.

Oddly enough, it looks completely separate from the rest of the building in design. The late 1900s-inspired look is exchanged for a modern, almost futuristic-esque, functional studio. The walls are lined with recessed square inserts, packed tightly together. At first— and though he was being dragged right through it— Seth thought it resembled the walls of the arena, further underground. Not that he could currently get up and take a closer look at them, of course.

“C’mon! C’mon! If you’re gonna go limp, do it right!”

Seth turns his head to look over his shoulder behind him as Keith continues to drag him forward, never slowing his pace.

“Aren’t you the one who picked me up in the first place?!” he challenges, sounding annoyed.

“It was the simplest way, kid!” Keith yells back, not even bothering to look at Seth. “I didn’t want to hear any of that reasoning crap! ‘Why do this?’, ‘Why do that?’, who gives a shit?!”

He takes one large step forward, bringing Seth’s body further out behind him before flinging him by the collar of his shirt, over his shoulder.

“You don’t do things because they make sense…”

Seth’s shocked as he was tossed with enough force to rotate him mid-air before his feet slammed against the edges of two dual-sided doors, kicking them open as he slid onto the ground inside the room backward, nearing the center of it. He looks up, watching a grinning Keith confidently step into the room toward him.

“...You do ‘em because they make that raging fire inside you burn even brighter!”

I’ve felt this before… does this guy’s abilities work like that Archangel’s, Vain?

Seth presses his fingertips against the floor, pushing himself upward off of it.

No, that’s not it. There wasn’t any callout. From everything I’ve experienced, you have to call out to a spirit in order to use them. Which means…

Seth’s eyes widen in shock as Keith stares at him, a telling sign that he knows Seth’s figured out his gimmick.

“Heh, you figured it out yet? Logic won’t getcha very far.”

…No, this guy hasn’t even used any spirit-related powers yet. This is just… his raw strength? Is he even human?

Keith flips a large light switch to his left, causing the room to quickly illuminate itself. It follows a similar design philosophy to the training hall that it’s a subsection of, with added horizontal blue stripes against the wall, and a large “4” painted in white on each side. Above, next to where each wall meets the ceiling, are wide openings for… something metallic, seemingly to cover each side. Seth considers the possibility of a second wall, but realizes his mind shouldn’t be wandering off on the specifics of the room.

No, he should be focused on the threat that lies in front of him.

“Are you gonna try and kill me again, huh…?” he asks, almost sarcastically.

Keith takes it in stride, showing off his shark-teeth grin once again. Given a wardrobe change, a thing for blood, and two oxygen tanks?

This guy really would look just like that Archangel.

Given the correlation in Seth’s mind, he decides to treat him as a similarly potent threat. Raising both of his fists in front of him, he enters a readied stance, waiting to see what Keith will do.

Though he probably could’ve guessed this would happen, Keith simply laughs in response.

“There’s that potential in your eyes… that’s right! I’ll make those embers turn into a raging flame…”

Keith pulls out his tachi from the sheath on his back as the top half slides over his shoulder… it’s a dual-layered sword, something Seth had never seen before. A custom work, no doubt there, with two separate blades spaced with only a few centimeters between both of them came from the silver and red guard of the sword, a color combination repeated throughout the rest of the tightly wrapped hilt. Two tangs must be within it, Seth thought, as the width of the sword was noticeably larger than those he had seen in the past.

“...That will burn down anything that stands in its path.”

There was another curious detail about him, or rather…

…One that was missing, as Keith raised the sword and cut through the air, bringing it down to his right side.

He wasn’t wearing a tie, of any sort. His dark grey-ish long-sleeve dress shirt was completely bare.

Keith, noticing Seth becoming distracted, raises the sword up toward him, level with his shoulder.

“This thing’s made of Pneuma. You already have an idea of what that is, yeah? Imagine you’ve got a flame. The air around you feeds that hungry fire, but what if you could turn all that into gasoline? You pour some directly onto your soul, and…”

Keith tosses the sword upward with one hand, though it looks like a heavy sword, it weightlessly flips through the air above his arm.

“...Mine, burning as bright as it does, makes this thing as light as a feather...”

As the sword’s hilt falls back into his hand, as effortlessly as he had tossed it up, he quickly swipes the blades down, crouching as they effortlessly pierce through the concrete of the training room’s floor.

“...But sharp enough to cut almost anything I want it to. Anything that isn’t dead after the first swing?”

He stands back up straight, bringing the sword backward as it slices through the concrete with zero resistance, almost like it was cutting through warm butter, or even air. He takes the sword completely out of the floor, leaving two cuts that are so fine it almost looks as if the building included them as it was built.

“Will be that way, soon enough. That being said…!”

He takes a step back, balancing most of his weight on his back foot as he stretches his left hand’s fingers out, then places them against the hilt of the tachi as he brings it parallel with his chest.

“...You’ve got one hell of a demon in you! Don’t expect me to go easy, now!”

Bringing it further in, he launches forward like a blur, as Seth barely manages to pull out his pistol, watching as the sword cuts through the air directly to his right. Keith glares at Seth from over the blade, watching as he steps backward while positioning his gun defensively.

“Pneuma and kickass passion are one and the same…”

He raises a kick, slamming it against Seth’s abdomen as he misses a shot off to Keith’s right side. The impact of the kick sends Seth sliding backward, struggling to maintain his stability. Keith rotates his sword with his wrist, raising up toward Seth again.

“...If it doesn’t burn hot, you get nothing!”

Raising the pistol, Seth frantically looks down the irons of the sight and fires two shots off. Keith, more than capable of dodging them, decides to prove a point.

To illustrate the gap between their strengths.

And so, he takes his blades and raises them. Letting the flat face of the outermost blade act against the direction the bullets are incoming from, Keith quickly swipes his forearm forward, shattering both bullets against the blade. As they scatter from the impact of the full swing, the remains spread across the air in front of Keith, a copper sheen glinting against the lights on the ceiling. He raises an eyebrow underneath his shades, glaring at Seth behind it all.

“Punch someone hard enough, you think you can hit their soul? That’s not how this works…”

He cuts through the field of debris, that was thin enough to float in the air instead of fall to the floor.

“...Throw that toy away and hit me with your desire. If your desire doesn’t grab mine by the throat, make it bite the curb for all it’s worth?”

He grins, swinging the blades yet again as he swaps the sword back and forth between both of his hands. Due to the lack of weight from it, Seth can’t even tell which one is his dominant hand.

“Then that’s that. Game over. Your fire dies out. There’s gotta be something inside you… a spark that’ll light those embers ablaze. Anything. Any emotion… happiness, sadness, anger, despair, hatred…”

Keith lowers his head, grinning with his sharp teeth. Something he apparently does pretty often.

“...The more emotions you know, the thicker your desires are… the more your soul burns with passion!”

Think…

His body retreats, taking a short step behind him.

Something that makes me feel… anything. The strongest emotion I have, the…

Seth’s eyes widen, as he begins to recall a memory deep within himself.

The source of the strongest emotion he currently has.

Oh…? This is…?

. . . . .

The dim breeze of the hills cast itself against the orphanage, causing the grass to blow before the back porch’s steps.

Light, gentle sniffling… the sound of a boy crying, could be heard close by.

Upon those steps, sat a younger Seth, holding his forearm against his eyes as he softly cried into it.

“Why…” he said, barely uttering the word, “...why am I always left alone…?”

The younger Seth curled his knees into his chest, sitting on one of the steps that connected the back porch of the orphanage to the large yard.

If it’s always going to be like this… maybe I should just…

Disappear…

“Oh, Seth?” A familiar voice calls out the young boy’s name, causing him to wince at it. He didn’t want to hear it. Not now, when he was sulking.

But it approached him nonetheless, the shade revealing another boy just against the corner of the orphanage’s outside wall. He looks relieved to see the young Seth, smiling in his findings.

It was Gabriel.

His best friend.

“There you are… I was looking all over for you.”

The younger Seth didn’t utter a word in response, only continuing to sulk to himself. Clutching at his knees, wanting to hide away from this world, where he felt he didn’t belong.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“You always get like this when Rena goes with the caretakers…”

Gabriel sits on the steps next to him, looking over at his friend.

“...She’ll come back. She always does.”

Seth shifts his head, buried against his knees and covered by his arms.

“...That’s…” he says through a sniffle, “That’s not… the point…”

Gabriel lowers his eyebrows, concerned for his friend. Though he doesn’t respond, Seth knows better than to stay silent about how he feels around him. He always pries it out of him, one way or another… something about him, it was always, always like that. Even if it annoyed him, even if he loved it… Gabriel saw through everything.

“I’m scared, okay?!” Seth yells out, muffled by his own body, “I’m scared that I’ll lose someone else… I love… Even if Rena comes back… We’re growing up, aren’t we…?”

Seth rubs his hands against his head, ruffling his own hair in pain.

“But I never wanted that…! I want… to stay here, with everyone… with my sister, and…”

Gabriel looks over at him, placing a hand on his right shoulder.

“Let me see your hand.”

Seth looks up at him over his arm, his reddened, watery eyes confused by what Gabriel’s asking of him.

“What…?”

“Your hand,” Gabriel insists, “Let me see it.”

Seth apprehensively moves his forearm over to his right, toward Gabriel. Giving him his hand, Gabriel moves his off of Seth’s shoulder to take his hand from the top of his fingers.

“You know how to snap your fingers, right? The caretakers taught us.”

“Yeah…?” Seth responds, sniffling after it. Still confused by what Gabriel’s leading to.

Gabriel takes his fingers and places Seth’s thumb between his index and middle finger, pushing them both down a bit to meet it.

“Normally… when you snap your fingers, you only use your middle, right? Well…”

Gabriel pushes Seth’s thumb involuntarily as it slides off of the two fingers it was placed upon, moving to the top right as the former two naturally move downward.

“...If you do it like this, it makes a different sound. Try it.”

Seth’s confused by why Gabriel’s doing this, to be sure… but he’s always trusted him, and always for the better. There had to be a reason.

Seth copies the way Gabriel taught him how to snap, though places too much pressure on his index finger the first time, causing a delay between both sounds.

“Like this…?”

Gabriel gently shakes his head, pointing at his index finger. His bright pink eyes look down at it, somehow emphasized due to the lack of direct light above all else.

“No, no… you pressed too hard, here. Try it again.”

Seth does as he asks, making a snapping sound with both his index finger and middle finger simultaneously. The two sounds resonate if only for a moment, making a wholly different sound altogether. It’s not as loud as a normal snap, but to Seth… it sounded clearly recognizable.

Gabriel smiles at Seth, approving of how he copied him.

“You did it! So, whenever you’re feeling lonely, or scared…”

Gabriel holds his hand up, staring at Seth while repeating the special snap he just finished teaching him.

“...Just do this, and I’ll come find you. It’s not very loud, but… I’ll hear it from anywhere. Okay?”

Seth nods his head.

“Okay…”

He looks down at his fingers, doing the snap again. Smiling for the first time that day, he felt that, as long as he recited this snap, maybe he wouldn’t ever be truly alone.

. . . . .

The crackling of fire.

The unmistakable smell of burning corpses.

Young Seth hadn’t yet known that smell so well he could even choose to experience it again purely by thinking about it… it was horrid to him, something he never wanted to know.

But he had to.

As the spreading flames lay waste to the hills and the orphanage surrounding him, even the beautiful tree he had spent so much time in… he pounded against the front door as he heard the screams of children and caretakers alike trapped inside. It was the middle of the night, and the only light was from the flame.

“IS ANYONE THERE?! HELP ME OPEN THIS! PLEASE!”

He cried out into the dead of night, the harsh burning of the flames masking the sound of his pleas.

They were almost all asleep when he had left.

He had barely avoided the caretakers who weren’t.

Something was calling his name, from outside the orphanage.

He knew what it was, but was too ashamed to think about it now.

All he could do was slam against the door, trying to open it. The handle running hot, it burned the skin of his hand, but he could not let go. Was this his fault, somehow?

No, surely… surely not. He couldn’t live with himself if it was. Every single child and caretaker here… they were his friends.

But he could hear them, now. The groaning of their melting bodies, the screaming of the ones who couldn’t break the windows on the upper floor. He stepped backward in horror, knowing the door wouldn’t open.

Knowing he wasn’t strong enough to throw a rock that could shatter those windows.

Even if he did, the children would fall to their deaths.

Everyone in his home was dead or was going to die.

The flames spreading across the outside walls confirmed that.

He didn’t want to look at them, but he had no other choice. This wasn’t a scene he could avert his eyes from. This was something he had to live with, for as long as he did.

Instinctively, his brain needed hope.

His hand, without his input, began reciting the special snap Gabriel taught him.

At that moment, he needed someone more than ever.

He needed his brother, who he always depended on.

Who always looked after him, who always knew how he felt.

What he wanted, what he needed, how he thought.

Pitifully snapping away, he began to scream in agony as his hand continued without his permission.

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

Over and over again, stepping backward from the orphanage as he cried out in pain.

Someone, anyone… he wished for anyone at all to appear.

Gabriel, at any moment, would come running toward him, as he always did.

Any time he snapped like this, no matter where he was, Gabriel would find him.

He never understood how it worked, but he was so happy that he didn’t care.

He looked down at his hand, through tears falling helplessly out of his eyes, hitting the scorched grass around him.

But on this night, the night he lost everything, all at once?

Nobody ever answered. No one exited the orphanage.

There was no one he could run to.

Nowhere he could ask for help.

No possible way to stop this from happening.

But, above all else, in the one sliver of hope he had for a tomorrow not filled with sorrow…

…Gabriel never arrived.

. . . . .

Keith rushes at Seth, his hands gripped tightly against his sword as he aims for the heart, yelling with a crazed smile. Though his eyes are covered by his shades, it’s clear that they would be wide and just as excited as his visible expressions.

“Hah, that’s it! You’ve found it, haven’t you?! Something that sets your soul on fire?!”

Seth tosses the gun out of his hand as it rattles against the floor, the magazine sliding out of it shortly after, as he pressed the release beforehand. He grits his teeth and clenches his fists.

Fire…

He remembers, vividly, images of him looking down at his own hand as the flames raged on around him, snapping over and over again. Waiting for someone who never came.

And when he found out why…

I see… This may be fun.

Right before Keith reaches him, Seth raises his right hand forward, level with his shoulder before Keith’s rush. Putting his thumb against his index and middle finger, he pushes his thumb against them until it slips away, slamming the two of them against his palm.

“Integrate.”

He had found it.

Just like what took everything from him, it was a blazing, unquenchable fire.

As soon as he snapped his fingers, he knew.

The source of his Pneuma, the deepest part of his soul, was…

…Hatred.