After Days - Chapter 6

It hurt. The heavy cost of unforgivable failure tore at Laza’s heart time and time again. The foot of a canyon bore witness to his anguish as the rock itself burned with angry green flames. He couldn’t bring himself to weep and he couldn’t bring himself to do anything productive with his strength. There was little point in doing either. Nothing he could do would reverse his actions, he had lost his Momma’s killer, and for all he knew, crushed the only people who he could have fought for.

The wind funnelling through the canyon was cold, though his body felt hot, his naked skin not even touched by the ice in the air. Stone crumbled under his fists and knees, without him needing to even to force it. Nothing was the same about him since he had used Kel’Dar. His body had grown, fatigue and hunger were not things his body recognised, all because weakness of any kind was unacceptable. The already strong muscles of his back had broadened and toned along with every one of his rigid muscles. Scraps of cloth dangled from his wrists and ankles, frayed cuffs that hadn’t been destroyed during his transformation.

He was terrifying. Ueda had once told him that Kel’Dar was like instant evolution, turning the host into the peak of their physical, mental and spiritual potential. She had also given a warning, something to deter himself and Leon from using it recklessly. As soon as Kel’Dar was used, the host’s clock started ticking. They could live as the closest thing to a god, but it was a limited life. First, their body would begin to ache, then their skin would slowly burn from the navel and spread over their body, and finally the use of any sort of power would rot their body to ash. It was not a death anyone would choose, but Laza had acted irrationally, and his clock was ticking.

London had been left all but levelled in his hunt for the killer and not once did he think to look for his younger siblings, but if the city couldn’t withstand his fury, the others never could. What was there to gain from going back now, there was no one to fight for and nothing to be saved, and everything was gone.

Revenge. At best that was all his still evolving mind could think of to act as his new purpose in life. But who would he have to kill to take his revenge? He had no idea who the assassin was and why he had been there. The killer had vanished so quickly that there was no tracking him down. With this power he could, possibly, topple Celestia, but he knew that it would only be consolation for his true desire.

“Where to start?” Laza’s face darkened as he felt something rise inside him, something unfamiliar and empowering. ‘So this is what control feels like.’ Before he had used Kel’Dar – when he was weak – he thought of himself as formidable, having killed a dozen or so Whispers in his lifetime. Now with such raw power rushing through him, so much so that he couldn’t control it as flames lashed from his body, a sense of true fierceness flooded him. How naïve must he have been to think that he was anything before all of this.

He saw some benefit in having nothing though. He could live for himself with no one to protect and no one to restrain his new found prowess. He could unleash himself upon the world and know that the only consequences that could come of it were within his own control. But that thought wasn’t enough for him, he had been raised by Ueda after all and he could not abandon her teachings so easily. He needed something more than just his fists for this, he needed something to act as an icon, a symbol to declare his actions as vengeance and not just mindless destruction.

Curiosity still tickled him, but not for his new self, Kel’Dar had been explained to him time and time again, so he understood it well enough, but the power of that dagger, Leon’s dagger, that had never been seen or mentioned. That could be his icon, he would find that blade and drive it through the heart of Celestia.

His eyes twisted in his growing smile as he decided on a course of action. “First, Russell will die, then Celestia, and as soon as I find him…” Flames raged around him, filling the canyon as the rock beneath him crushed. “…that red haired bastard is mine!”