Time will make monsters out of all of us.

~Arawn, God of the Dead

Otto’s massive hand grabbed the prisoner’s arm and turned his wrist slightly. The humerus bone resisted, but only because Otto wasn’t in a hurry.

Snap. Crack.

Kitten howled in pain as the bone broke in two places. The pain was within a tolerable range, but only because the path to becoming an Inquisitor required him to suffer the same torment he’d inflict. It’d been years since anyone had harmed him, so his tolerance toward pain wasn’t as high as it once was. Even still, he knew that he wasn’t a freak like Crow, someone that didn’t seem to fear death or pain.

“I’m not like you,” Crow told Kitten when he stopped screaming. “I don’t want to do this, but I’m not foolish enough to think you will become a good person if I let you go. So let’s play a game.”

“A… game?” Kitten didn’t know why, but seeing Crow’s big smile, he felt fear for the first time since his master took him as a disciple.

“It is a simple game with rules. I ask questions, and you answer. Answering honestly gains rewards, but failing… well, your arm is just the start.”

“The reward? Wh-what’s the reward?”

“Before I ask a question, I pick a bone. You answer correctly, and that one is spared. Fail, and my oversized brother will break it. You didn’t answer my first question, so your left humerus was broken.”

“I don’t want to play,” Kitten said disdainfully. “This crude method of interrogation is beneath me.”

Crow laughed and clapped his hands excitedly, which caused Kitten to flinch back in fear. “You should know that I’m counting on exactly that. Otto, the big guy next to you, is a stickler for the rules but not so smart about other things. His simple view of the world makes it so that he always wants to play and doesn’t understand people like you. You lack fun in your life, and he’ll provide it. Free of charge. Seriously, I won’t charge you a single coin.”

“Toy?” Otto grinned foolishly, playing along with Crow. A massive finger jabbed into Kitten’s ribs.

“Yup, he’s your toy. You heard the rules, right?” Crow looked at Kitten with a mischievous grin. After a pregnant pause, Otto grabbed Kitten’s forearm and twisted it decisively. The man screamed, not understanding what he had done wrong.

“Otto break toy?” The giant laughed and grabbed the prisoner’s left hand.

“Stop! I’ll fucking play your stupid game, goddamit,” Kitten screamed. “You said there are rules. How can you randomly break my arm?”

“Relax, Kitty. I didn’t break the rules, and I won’t let him break your hand until I ask a question. Rules are important.”

“You broke my arm for no reason!”

“Wrong. I asked if you heard the rules, and you ignored me. That hurt my feelings.”

“You are the fucking devil,” Kitten said. He had no idea if Crow was faking it or not, but somehow the boy had got to him. The method was crude, but his willpower was already breaking because he gave in.

“Says the man who makes a living torturing people. Bodies can mend, but minds aren’t so easy to fix. What you do isn’t morally gray, its evil.”

“You’ve no idea who you are crossing. My master isn’t someone you should cross. You anger him, and he won’t target you until he’s killed everyone you care about. That’s how he’ll break you.”

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“What a coincidence. That’s how I plan on breaking him. He has nine disciples, and you are the seventh if I’m not mistaken. Next question, I’ll give you an easy one. What is the name of your organization?”

“It is no secret. Gearan Academy.”

Crow looked at Otto, who nodded. After confirming the answer, Crow spent a few seconds combing the various groups he knew about. Gearan Academy was in his memory, but not much was known. They were Inquisitors who followed some crazy doctrines about Truths like it was a religion. Crow was more worried about the word Gearan. It came from ancient Draoidh, which translated into murmur.

Unless it was a crazy coincidence, that would make Kitten one of the mysterious Murmurs. They were interrogators who offered tiered services like an assassin organization. If that was true, then he really did step into it. It was never good to anger an organization like that.

“Left clavicle,” Crow said, and Otto gave him a strange look, so he pointed at the correct bone. “Does that make you a Murmur?”

“That… how did? I don’t know what that means.” Kitten lied, and Crow didn’t need Otto to tell him. The big guy didn’t bother saying anything, just shrunk his hand so he could grip the clavicle and snap it. Because of its position and angle, the broken bone tore through the man’s flesh.

“Clearly a lie,” Crow shook his head as if staring at a moron. The ridicule damaged Kitten’s psyche more than the broken bone. “I am not familiar with Inquisitors nor their cultivation methods. Your type sound like crazy fanatics, which means you are probably some sort of Spirit-based practitioner. Enlightenment through pain or some other crazy nonsense is my guess. Am I right? Oh, before you answer that, let’s go with your right foot this time.”

“It isn’t nonsense,” Kitten said through grit teeth. You have no idea that my master is the lone survivor of the Rannsaiche Academy. Our cultivation methods and techniques are far more powerful than a baby like you can fathom.

“I’ll take that as your affirmation, so you saved your right foot.”

“Fuck. You.”

“You haven’t realized it yet, have you?”

“Is that question part of the game?”

“Nope.”

“Realized what?”

“You were never in control here. I wanted to be captured, and I’m hunting down your master and his disciples. You could say I’m answering to a higher calling. Hey, let’s see how is the bigger delusional fanatic…” Crow laughed while Mocking Kitty. The man was an Inquisitor, a Murmur at that, so he should possess abilities to detect lies—probably more than one. Crow hadn’t lied, which should confuse the hell out of him. The Sluagh called in a favor, so he really was answering to a higher call.

“You… aren’t lying. Who would dare target my master?”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Crow smirked. “Right hand.”

“Hands have more than one bone,” Kitten said.

“Oh? Do you prefer we break your fingers one by one? Should I ask rapid-fire questions? Will you be able to survive that kind of pain? Don’t be stupid.”

“Can’t help it if you don’t know how to count.”

“Just the metacarpals,” Crow winked at Murmur, who shuddered in response. Secretly, he pointed at the back of his hand, knowing Otto wouldn’t know what he meant.

Four loud cracks echoed in the small chamber, followed by the man screaming obscenities. Crow admired the inquisitor’s threshold for pain. When he finally stopped wailing, he glared at them with fierce eyes and murderous intent.

“You broke your rules!”

“I asked four questions—you didn’t answer.”

“Those were rhetorical questions.”

“Otto, did the rules mention anything about rhetorical questions?”

“No.”

“Big guy never lies.”

“Ask your damned questions,” Kitten said through grit teeth. They won’t have to kill me because they are angering me to death!

“This question is important, so we need to target your most prominent bone,” Crow laughed when he saw the man squirm and try to protect his cock. “That isn’t a bone, idiot. For your right femur, who hired you to torture me?”

The Sluagh only contacted him after he arrived here, so there was no enmity between him and the Gearan Academy before today. There was still another party he had to deal with. Crow really didn’t like this method of information gathering.

The Ghost Butlers formed from his Faces of the Dead weren’t that reliable because their Souls were damaged from the transfer. The irritating part was that the memories that took most of the damage were the most recent ones. Add in the fact that older memories suffered from degradation. The most reliable information came from the most potent memories—usually related to sex.

The other part of the ability that irritated him was that he could only gain a vague understanding of their abilities. It never gave the specifics of any method, technique, or spell, and if it wasn’t for his Sage’s Mind, the little bit he did learn would have been useless. Luckily he could reverse engineer many of them if he spent time analyzing those memories in depth.

“I don’t know,” Kitten enunciated slowly as if it could prevent the pain.

Otto shook his head, and Crow nodded his.

“Wrong answer.”

Crunch! That was the sound of a femur breaking. Crow winced when he heard the sound, knowing it was definitely not a clean break. Otto didn’t grab and twist this time but punched the bone. It did more than snap it. Hell, it probably crippled the guy for life.

Kitten’s eyes rolled back into his head.