”DIE!” I shouted, fighting through Zelos’ manipulation to breathe a torrent of flame at him.
Zelos barely dodged it, but his momentary slip in focus allowed me to break through his control and land a [REINFORCED, POISON-ATTUNED WRAITH STRIKE] to his face. I smiled as he reeled back from the punch.
“MAKE HIM SUFFER!”
I closed the distance between us, preparing to kick him with a buffed poison kick, but I was held back not by Zelos’ direct control but his by his indirect control – the Oni.
“You haven’t changed, Fallen Star,” Zelos spat, wiping blood from his lips. His eyes carried just as much hate for me as ever, something that made both Fallen Star and me furious. Who did he think he was to keep looking down on me?
“YOUR LIFE IS IN MY HANDS. YOU’D DO WELL TO ACT LIKE IT.” I sneered.
“Oh, please. You have three minutes until you bleed out from the injury I gave you. I did that intentionally, just in case you tried some stunt like this.”
He tried to control me again, though I managed to breathe electrified mist into his face to free myself. Growing more visibly annoyed, Zelos closed the gap between us and looked me in the eye, sending the Oni away.
“Listen to me, Fallen Star. I know you resent me, but you must understand that my goals for you are pure.”
“PURE?!”
“I am Zelos, the Myth of Control.” He motioned the Wild Men behind him. “I live in accordance with my purpose: using mine and the powers of other Rogues to remove humans from the equation. You are the Curse of Destruction. It is your purpose to destroy, and I want nothing more than for you to live that purpose.” Under his breath, he added, “...even if Ares doesn’t feel that way.”
“MY GOALS FOR MYSELF AND YOUR GOALS FOR ME DO NOT ALIGN. YOU TOOK MY MOTHER FROM ME, AND YOU FORCED ME TO BECOME NOTHING MORE THAN YOUR TOOL OF DESTRUCTION. DID YOU THINK I WOULD FORGIVE YOU AND ALLOW YOU TO LIVE?”
“I made you destroy. I made you do what you were born to do. I am not a villain for using a hammer to hit a nail.”
I grabbed him by his collar, staring deep into his black eyes – the eyes which were labeled with the very Rune Mark branded into my chest. When I spoke, it felt as though I was speaking to both Zelos and Ares at the same time.
“YOU SPEAK AS THOUGH YOU HAVE DOMINION OVER MY LIFE. IT WAS NEVER IN YOUR POWER TO CHOOSE WHAT I ULTIMATELY BECAME. THAT HUBRIS IS WHY YOU WILL DIE BY MY HAND.”
Zelos laughed. “Yet you align yourself with him?!” He pointed at Yugo again, just as he had when I first arrived here. His head was fully reformed now, but his eyes were distant and looking in two different directions. The Historian sat above him, staring straight at me while the Minashire Monitor circled Yugo’s body like Mr. Perrow’s pixie used to when she was healing him.
When I didn’t answer his question, Zelos’ face softened slightly. He separated from me, walking closer to the crater’s edge.
“Fallen Star, what do you know about the Mamoru Clan?”
I charged for him, uninterested in talking about world politics. Zelos controlled me once again in response, freezing me in place.
“I told you, I’m not here to fight.” He looked me up and down, though he focused on the still-bleeding hole in my stomach. “We don’t have all day. Come on, answer.”
Begrudgingly, I obliged him. I’d have my opportunity to kill him as soon as this was over. “They’re the world police. They clean up the big messes and manage Minashire’s finances. You all taught me that.”
Zelos nodded. “We did. But why do you figure they never showed up to kill you when we made you destroy the local cultist communities?”
Stolen novel; please report.
I didn’t care if they were “cultist communities”. I’d spent weeks with them, getting to know them and getting close to them. Getting them to let their guard down…
I’ll kill him for you all. I promise.
“It happened quickly. They couldn’t have responded in time. And Bukimiburgh is out of the way. Aren’t they in Azuma Saikyou?”
“The Mamoru Clan is everywhere. They were in Saikou, for example, and there were a few in Oni Village, but your master here killed them while you all were sleeping. They could’ve responded in time, but they didn’t.”
He stared over at Yugo, who was now fully reformed. Interestingly, his black hair was streaked light blue. He hobbled over to Zelos and I, though he was barely able to walk. He might’ve been saying something, but I couldn’t make out anything given the distance between us.
“I’ll answer that question. The reason they didn’t do anything about you was because they wanted it to happen. Wanted you to destroy those cultist communities. The Mamoru Clan is a crime family. Their primary business is chaos. When a Rogue goes wild, the Mamoru Clan profit from the destruction. They are the problem and the solution. They create the monster and sell the weapon. They destroy the city and collect charity from the destruction. They cause an outbreak and then report it on the news. If it makes you feel any better, you’re not unique in your upbringing. They’ve funded and created many cults throughout Minashire in hopes of birthing monsters like you. Those efforts never worked, so they decided to create their own Myths and have them do the dirty work those Curses would’ve caused.”
“What Myths?”
Zelos smiled bitterly. “The first was a boy named Ares. Next, a woman named Limos. Then Zelos, then Thanatos.”
To my knowledge, Myths were formed when at least 1000 fervently believed the exact same story regarding a specific concept. The strength of a Myth was determined by how many people believed that thing. A Pixie, for example, was well-known by most people across Minashire. Despite that fact, there weren’t consistent stories regarding what Pixies did or what they were capable of. Most people would know one if they saw one, but they wouldn’t truly know what to expect. For that reason, some were terrifying while others were kinder than Fairies. Hellhounds, meanwhile, were universally known to be horrifying, powerful black wolves. There was no confusion about that, so you knew you were in for a fight wherever you saw one in the wild. As far as Curses were concerned, though, they were formed when people attempted to create their own Myth – usually in groups of less than 1000. It was why Bukimiburgh was the “Cult Capital of Minashire”. There were so many small groups trying to create their own Myths, usually with poor results. If the Mamoru Clan had the power to create Myths and Curses, that made them far more dangerous than I could even comprehend.
“We grew up in a Continent outside of Azuma Saikyou, Domus Fortis. When the Mamoru Clan matriarch came to pick us up, she put us to work the same way we put you to work. The only difference is she made us do things outside of our purpose: like making you.”
Before I even had a chance to process this, Zelos thumbed over at Yugo. He was much closer now, and his face was full of rage I’d never seen from him. “I’m surprised he never told you any of this. He’s the Patriarch of–”
“Zelos!” Yugo roared, impossibly strong [WRAITH STRIKES] charged in either hand. They burned bright as lightning-like aura crackled around his fists.
“Ah, seems our meeting is over. I can’t afford to get into another fight with him right now.” Zelos turned to me with wide eyes as an ominous, familiar sense of foreboding washed over me. I knew this look, and I knew what it meant.
Something big is coming, something involving me…
“Fallen Star, I have a duty to make you better. Not only as the Myth of Control – the one who will free us from humanity –, but as one of your donors. You are far too weak. Too inhibited. You should have at least been strong enough to kill someone as weak as Shuten Douji by yourself by now. Don’t worry, though. I’ll fix that. I’ll fix that very soon. You have my word.”
With that, before I could answer him, Zelos was gone – vanished into thin air. Leaving me alone with Yugo. I stood there for a long while, still trying to process everything I’d been told. I existed because the Mamoru Clan wanted me to exist? If they wanted me to exist, who’s to say there weren’t more Fallen Stars that I didn’t know about? And Yugo was the Patriarch of that Clan? Why didn’t he tell me? Was that why he wanted me to join him? What did that mean for the two of us? And what did Zelos mean that he’d fix my weakness? What did “donor” mean? It was all so much that I couldn’t decide what I wanted answers to first. Not even as Somnia and Archie came running up to the two of us, not even as the Oni gathered themselves and regained their footing.
“Rui,” Yugo said. I wondered what kind of face he was making? It was impossible to tell with how blurry my vision had gotten. “Ah, right. I’ll heal that right away. Don’t worry about–”
“Who are you?”