There was a fire in the dark.
Not of the destructive kind that burned him and his enemies at the stake, but something purposeful beyond destruction, a quiet power that burned with hope.
For a moment, Kade wondered whether he was still on fire, awaking to himself burning away once again, yet the euphoria he felt wasn't the kind that came with death—instead, it was his broken body that was being reformed.
A soothing warmth washed over his soul, and he became more alert.
Where am I? What happened? Who is there?
There was no answer to his thoughts. He had to seek them out himself, beyond the sleep that took him.
Kade's eyes fluttered open.
And the first thing he saw...was Nephis.
Kneeling over his resting form, her face pained yet determined, her silver irises distant yet radiant—like her hand that rested on his chest. Kade realized that the glow was a silvery white fire, one that spread from her fingertips and into his body.
'...She's healing me.'
Kade silently watched and felt his body reforge back into a state before his consequences, like rewinding time to a state where he was healthy once again.
The pain and numbness washed away with the fire.
The silver radiance dimmed and died in Nephi's arms, her distant eyes refocusing to glance into Kades. A question hidden in her irises.
Silence permeated, and he sat up, finally rising.
In the darkening sky of the afternoon light, Kade saw his peers. Each one of them stared at him with accusation.
Sandra's eyes burned. Accusation and anger within, her daggers at an arm's reach.
Ike sat quietly, his jaw tight. His calm gaze pierced deeper, unforgiving.
Nephis watched with that distant calm, but her sword at her hip gleamed in the dying sunlight.
Cassie didn't face him. She couldn't. But her shoulders had turned away.
Sunny watched from the shadows, his stare sharper than usual. Questioning.
Kade didn't know when Sunny, Nephi, and Cassie arrived. But now that they were here, he could guess what they were looking at him for. The presence of his peers weighed down on his shoulders.
And for the first time in forever.
He felt small.
Nephis spoke first, her voice domineering and solemn.
"You're aware of what you did, correct?"
How could he not? Kade saw firsthand, in his soul sea, against the Asura that claimed his own body. Where the bastard bragged and clenched his fist, eager to see Kade react.
In the soul sea, there was only air between his grasp, but out there—where Kade had no control—the spell had whispered the fate he demonstrated.
[You have slain dormant human: Ayen Driver]
The same guilt twisted in his chest now, sharp and merciless. There was no humor to be found in it—not for him, and certainly not for anyone else. If there was a joke to be told, it was him.
The idiot who trusted his flaw.
Kade exhaled slowly.
"I'm aware, princess..."
Nephis nodded.
"Then why did you kill her?"
The weight of their eyes dragged him down. It was overwhelming, more than he'd expected. These weren't thugs or faceless strangers. Some of them were friends. The others were supposed to be his allies.
That familiarity made it worse. So much worse.
Anger surged from the storm inside him, irrational and directionless.
'I DIDN'T KILL HER--IT WASN'T ME!'
He wanted to scream, to shout at these idiots who should have known better. Who should have trusted him?
Yet he loosened his tensed body.
Reality had already passed judgment.
He couldn't run from it. Guilt smothered his defiance, choking it down with bitter ash.
It was reality; guilt overtook him as he remembered to accept it.
For now...he had done it.
There was no excuse. In the end of the day, he caused her death.
"It's my flaw."
The aligned pressure diminished, his peers now looking to him with interest. Revealing a flaw was something that rarely anyone would do if they could. People like Cassie and Ike couldn't, as such, but everyone else did.
Everyone in front of him, staring down at him, had a weakness.
This was his.
"My flaw is [Battle Lust]. It grows stronger as I do not fight, more in a sense if I do not cause harm to others." - The silence wallowed as he talked: When I don't, I feel an itch that grows stronger and stronger, eating away at my sanity."
His amber eyes stared into his accusers, gaining back some of his old confidence as he watched them process.
"Sometimes it can grow too strong, and I completely lose myself, as if someone else was in control of my own body—an anger and madness that just makes me want to tear down the whole world."
That had been some of it. As in terms of the Asura...He would not speak of him.
His peers silently looked away, contemplating his reason, watching the black sea start to pool at the seemingly endless maze of crimson coral.
Sandra, on the other hand, gritted her teeth.
"Bullshit," she spat.
The dual wielder turned to face Kade directly, taking steps closer and closer to the brawler. Anger written over her face, her hands reaching down to her twin daggers.
"You fought plenty before you killed Ayen, and nearly ME! --You had talked just fine before you murdered her!"
She didn't stop until the flat of Nephis' sword halted her in her tracks. The legacy's long sword is like a barrier between the two. Changing Star's gaze sharpened down at Kade.
"Explain"
Kade sighed, the familiar weight of doubt on his shoulders once again. He heaved himself from the ground, scuffling his messy hair in irritation.
"Back in the fight, I was dealing with it ok; it was horrible, sure, but it had only been building up for two weeks, so I took it out on the crabs..." Kade stared his hidden anger back into Sandra.
"But they were too weak to kill the scavengers—so it was left for me to save the day like I was doing... And I needed strength. So I used my aspect to fuel my flaw--"
"Why the hell would you fuel your flaw?" Sunless, he blurted.
"I NEEDED TO KILL THEM, OK! Don't cut me off, short-stack--" Kade growled. The entire situation was irritating, and he was struggling to shake it off as usual. "My echo, Byakko, has an attribute that feeds off my emotions. So, in turn, I fueled the fuel to use his attribute."
Sandra's anger faltered as her mind put the pieces of the puzzle together.
"The fireball..." she muttered.
Kade snapped his fingers back at her, relief and joy finally coming back to him. Maybe this ordeal would be over soon.
"Exactly!"
The silence reemerged, Kade now wearing a sheepish grin, staring at his allies. Each one of them displayed a different response with their body language, yet none of them attempted to speak up.
Taking the quick break to his advantage, Kade tried to seal the deal. Guilt still clutched his heart, yet his embedded survival took hold.
"I'm truly sorry for all of it… I swear, I'll never, ever, fuel my flaw again. This was my fault, and I'll make it right."
He took a breath, gaze steady now.
"From now on, I'll prioritize each of your lives over my own."
The cohort seemed to be ok with the excuse, except for one.
Sandra, of course.
"That's not enough; you don't sound sincere at all--just trying to save yourself from the consequences of your actions." She sternly claimed.
Kade let her response simmer in the breeze, bringing his arms together as he tried to come up with a rebuttal. As for the person who really just wanted him to suffer, she had a reason, of course... But what could he say--
"Shut up," Kade muttered.
"Excuse me?" Sandra asked.
Something inside of him snapped.
"Shut the fuck up," Kade spat.
The group's eyes widened; they didn't expect this... Neither did Sandra.
"Wha-"
"Do you listen to me? I said, Shut up!" - Kade whispered angrily. Now pacing towards Sandra, the group tensed with his every step.
"Oh, I'm sorry, really," Kade said, scrunching his face like a child mocking a teacher. "I should have let you all die instead of helping. Maybe I should have watched you all get gobbled up like grubs!"
Mimicking a maiden in distress, Kade put on his best girly impersonation.
"Oh, oh, but nooo... I can't be thankful at all; instead, I'll be a little brat who demands repercussions for his horrible act of saving my life! --"
Sandra pressed herself forward against Nephi's flat blade, anger and bewilderment surging.
"Do not mock me! So what if you saved us? THAT DOES NOT EXCUSE YOU FROM WHAT HAPPENED AFTER!"
Nephis tensed, Ike gripped his blade in readiness, Sunny reluctantly put down his pocket of crab meat that had been substituting for popcorn, and summoned the Azure Blade. Cassie sat in the distance, away from the conflict, her eyes welling with tears.
"Ok then..." Kade murmured before coming back with a vengeance.
"What the fuck are you going to do about it?"
Kade leaned in, clenching his jaw.
"I'm right here. Hell, I've been down and out of it for who knows how long? Yet I live... So tell me. What are you going to do about it?"
Suddenly, a gale of wind burst from Sandra, and Nephis steadied her stance from being pushed away from the forming hurricane. Sunny and Ike immediately stepped up to close in.
"DO YOU WANT TO FIND OUT!" Sandra roared with the wind.
Kade scoffed, shoving forward through the storm, his feet grinding against the stone.
"Do your worst. I've had people trying to kill me for as long as I've lived, yet I'm alive. Do you think you're any different, special?" Kade proclaimed, summoning [Embodied Wrath]. The very same stone hands that had killed Ayen formed behind him.
"Try it, and I'll break you--carry your body all the way gate, so that I can send you home to your daddy in A BOX!"
Sandra's entire face tensed, a vein threatening to pop from her forehead. The wind was preparing to crash down on its target.
"YOU-" But she didn't get to finish.
Their peers had had enough of the chaos.
Nephis powered through the wind, her hair whipping wildly as she moved. In a flash, her longsword sang through the air, stopping a breath from slicing Sandra's neck.
Ike, on the other hand, popped into mist, appearing right before Kade, his broadsword instantly stretched. Resting against his throat, preventing him from taking another step.
The two aggressors froze, the cold steel at their necks cooling them down.
In the moment of stillness, Sunny walked between the four of them. He scratched his head in irritation.
"That's enough, thank you. We won't have anyone left to help us live through this hellscape if you idiots kill each other."
With the attention of his peers, he clapped.
"Now then. I think you both need time to grow up. Both of you should separate on the other sides of the platform, right?"
Sandra clenched her jaw, still seething. She spoke sternly.
"It's simple: lose control again, and I will kill you." Nephis put pressure on the blade, the edge drawing slight blood from Sandra's neck.
Kade scoffed, waving it off. "Yeah, sure, whatever you think."
Sunny glanced at the two, annoyed. "What did I just say? Split up. Or we split you up."
They glared at each other a moment longer. Then turned and walked away. In opposite directions.
Except for the quiet sobbing of Cassie…
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Kade strode away to the edge of the stone outcrop platform, plopping himself down at the drop. His eyebrows still knitted, with irritation written on his face.
He quickly thought of ways to try and fulfill this anger, to make purpose of the still rage he held...
Yet he couldn't find one.
Regret and grief came back to haunt him, and he found his flame doused before it could spark once again. Kade sighed, looking distantly at the encroaching black sea.
'I really fucked up, didn't I?
From killing a fellow sleeper to now nearly causing catastrophic conflict in the group... Sure, he had his reasons to be mad, but this was too much.
'This is no fun at all...' He grumbled, resting his head in his hands.
No fights, no shared laughter, no teasing banter. Just drama. Just tension that sat on his chest like dead weight.
He thought back to before the academy, laughing away as he rescued Dawn from Kurt, from them sharing conversation in the cafeteria, or huddled together with Cassie, at movie night.
That was fun. And it's what he missed.
Dawn.
"Where are you..." Kade whispered. his words deaf on the black waves.
With no response, Kade sighed, lying down on the edge of the shore. Cold and alone, without the fire and company that the others had.
He watched as the stars emerged, one by one, in the deepening night sky.
counting them quietly… until sleep finally took him.