Infernal Academia

Chapter 66 - Trayer's Righteousness: Part 10 (The Cold Sting of Steel)

The two stood frozen, as if time itself had taken a moment to gaze at this gory sight in terror. Each of the girls had stopped struggling against their chains, too horrified for words. Diate gripped the spear tightly and grinned. Cobalt, on the other hand, stared at the weapon as it pierced through his abdomen and out the other side, the speartip dripping with sanguine hues.

Then, all at once, the pain hit.

It was indescribable. Like his very life force was being slowly leeched from his body, the Incubus wrapped his shaking hands around the weapon's shaft and screamed. The Devil laughed as he listened to his cries of pain.

"Really?  Really?!  I wasn't even aiming to kill you quite just yet!  You're pathetic, Trayer!  Absolutely pathetic!" he roared, seemingly bemused by Cobalt's agony.

Cobalt tried to stand but quickly dropped to his knees, screaming once more as a fresh stream of blood poured from his wounds onto his hands, before overflowing and pouring all down his front.

"Wh- Wh- Wh- What have you...?!" he stammered, his voice choking up.

The Devil sighed and slumped his shoulders.

"I've won, apparently.  Shame; I was hoping our little spat would at least go on for another hour or so," replied Diate, giving him a sideways frown.

He twisted the spear a little, causing Cobalt to scream.

"Such a disappointment.  In everything you do."

Shaking all over, the Incubus limply grabbed the bloodied haft of the weapon.

"But perhaps it's to be expected from the town doormat.  I was honestly a little sickened when I first laid eyes on you, Trayer; walked all over by everyone you meet.  Your students abuse and take advantage of you.  Your colleagues mock and look down upon you.  You take hits from your enemies and fucking thank them for it.  What kind of man does that?"

The edges of his vision began to blur as his extremeties grew numb and cold.

"Sad, weak, pathetic little Cobalt.  Born a shadow of his father, lived a life stunted by his own flimsy genes, and died a mediocre death."

Losing the feeling in his hands, the Incubus lost his grip on the haft, causing him to slump forward.  Another inch of cold iron was fed into his ruptured abdomen, but by then, the agony was beginning to dull.  Through his distorted hearing, he was dimly aware of the girls crying out through their chains.

"Pathetic," Diate repeated.

It was the last thing Cobalt heard, as by then, his eyes blacked out and his head slumped forward.  Slowly, his heartrate declined as one last breath was sucked from his lungs.

So this was how it ended.

Diate wasn't wrong; it was a mediocre death.

A mediocre death for a weak lamb of a man.

Pathetic.

Truly...

He was pathetic...

~~~~~

There was a cold comfort to the silence.  Cobalt felt a strange sense of neutrality wash over him as he floated in the void.  All the supressed anger, pain, horror, fear, dread... gone.  He briefly thought of each of the girls and their individual faces, but he quickly pushed them from his mind.  No, he was gone now.  Dead.  He thought he'd be more shocked, but what did he expect?  He may have been injured before, but a Devil was still a Devil; he was a fool to think he could stand up to him.