Vengeance
(Academy Phase)
"Professor Dyneira!" I hear Claude's voice somewhere nearby, weak with relief and amazement. "You're...how..."
He keeps speaking, but his words fade away, for fury drowns them out; right now there is no one in the world but me and the witch. Kronya.
I drop and hit the ground, and there she stands, her face slack with disbelief. Her mouth opens and shuts as she struggles to speak: "H...How? No, this isn't possible! You should be gone forever. Thales—"
The Creator's Chain strikes her side, tearing into her flesh like a saw.
Blood spurts, and she screams and staggers back, doubling over. I slash my weapon and the curved blade of the Sword whips again, slicing into earth and gravel as it swings down across the ruins. Her knife comes up and she knocks it away, but with an expert flick of my wrist, the serrated whip shifts and bites like a cobra, and blood erupts from her shoulder. Another shriek, and then she is running, magic boiling around her wrists, the same kind Thales used to escape through his portal.
She doesn't make it far — in a flash I overtake her and seize the back of her neck. She fights, but it's useless — I drive her head into the stone of a crumbling pillar. The rock pulverizes her nose, and when I pull her back by her hair, blood covers the stone. But not enough, not nearly enough. I slam her into the pillar again, and hear the bones in her cheek shatter. The third time, her chin caves in. The fourth time, three of her teeth fall away, and inside me my rage becomes a frightening sadistic thing — the sight of the blood pleases me to the point of arousal, and I think I smile. I think I cry. I see Jeralt behind my eyes, and I think I scream, over and over, "Die. Die, die, die."
But somehow she is still alive. She flails, and her hand comes up into my face, and then I am caught in an inferno of black fire. It is strong — it takes me by surprise, and I feel my feet leave the ground as the force of the magic hurls me away. I land and roll, and move forward. Yards away, Kronya is collapsed into a broken heap, her face a dripping, crumpled ruin of blood and gore. She coughs wetly, and the fear that I see in her eyes when she looks up at me is so sweet; suddenly there is nothing I want more in the world than to hear her screams, her pleas for mercy. The need for it is intense and all-consuming — with every step closer, it grows stronger.
"Stop." Kronya's voice is thick with pain — blood oozes between her remaining teeth as she speaks. "Don't...come near me...you...monster..."
Her hands move, splaying across the pavement, and the ground begins to glow with a purplish light as a portal awakens beneath her. A perverse amusement comes to me — She is trying to escape! But there is no escape from me, not ever, for my reach is long. I swing the Sword, and the Chain strikes like a deadly snake. Suddenly, Kronya's arm is gone — it sails through the air, landing yards away from her in a splash of purplish blood, and she watches it fall, a sickening horror overtaking her face. Moments later, she begins to convulse, letting out grieved, animalistic sounds as blood pours from the stump of her arm.
"Ahhh... Augh, gah, gah!"
To me the sounds are like a song, as sweet as one of Lady Rhea's melodies. The other one, I think, and I raise the Sword, prepared to remove her remaining limbs.
Stop. Stop, please.
The anguished voice cuts through Kronya's song, and I stiffen. It does not come from without, but from within: Sothis. She is crying, and I do not move, momentarily stunned out of my fevered rage. You have done enough. Please, no more. I cannot abide this cruelty.
Cannot abide? I think. I bring the mind the things I cannot abide: like my father, stabbed in the back by this witch when he, sickeningly, was trying to protect her. This witch ending the only person in the world who truly knew me, understood me, brought me comfort and warmth that I could not and cannot receive from anyone else. This witch laughing as he fell, and disappearing into the ether. The rage returns, and so do the tears — they spring from my eyes and race down my face, heavy and red-hot.
This is not the way, Sothis begs. And you know it to be true. This will not bring back Jeralt.
What does she know? Nothing. She doesn't see the abyss beneath my fury, the empty, cold abyss that has only deepened at his passing.
I do know, she says, her voice sorrowful. I feel it too. But violence will not heal you.
The tears keep coming, and my vision blurs. Someone moves before me: Claude. I hear his voice, but do not understand his words. He reaches for me — I feel his hand touch my wrist. He is trying to get me to drop my blade. For a moment, the tears clear, and his ashen face comes into view.
"Dyneira, please." I've never heard him address me without my title before, and for a moment, I am able to focus on him. Never have I ever seen him look so grim: red wounds cut across his face, and grit dusts his hair. His armor is scuffed, his tunic and trousers torn and ratty. And there, in the depths of his eyes...fear. Of me, I suspect — Kronya's blood drips from my sword, my sleeves, my gloves, and I have just returned from the mysterious beyond. Monster, the witch called me, and I suddenly feel like one — an ancient, battle-weary force that has emerged from the shadows.
"Drop the sword," Claude says gently. "It's over. You've avenged Jeralt."
There is murmuring behind me — I sense more than see my students standing a ways away, and their terror is a cloying, thick thing, so distinct that I can feel it undulate across my body in a wave. Fear of me. Of what I have done. I expect to feel remorse, but that rage is still there, and as I look into Claude's face, I find I cannot swallow it.
"Step aside." My command is absolute, with no room for argument. Claude's face tightens.
"The battle is over, Teach," he says. "We've won. You don't..." He took a breath. "You don't need to do anything else, she's finished. She's not stabbing anyone in the back ever again."
Listen to him. Something in my vision shifts, and suddenly I can see Sothis standing behind Claude, in front of Kronya. Her green eyes are glowing with sadness. This is beneath you, she tells me. This...creature is beneath you. Washing Jeralt's grave in her blood will only sully his death. She holds my gaze a moment before whispering, You know I'm right.
Yes, she is right, some part of me knows she is right, and yet as the seconds pass, the pain grows — the pain in my head, behind my eyes, in the abyss where my heart is supposed to be. My father's affectionate smile appears in my mind, and it becomes unbearable, and all over again I want to hurt, maim, destroy. Yes, Sothis is right, but Sothis is righteous, and I am not — I am the Ashen Demon, and in that moment, I feel truly evil.
I swing my blade. The whip extends, curving past Claude. It lashes through Sothis.
It takes off Kronya's head.
--
Folks, I think I have a problem, and that is that I enjoy writing gorey scenes. Am I secretly a psychopath? o.O
Also... Yeah, yeah, I know Kronya dies before "Byleth" gets her green hair, but I enjoy breaking canon.
11-9-2019
