Up in Flames (Fire Force fanfic)

Chapter Forty Five: Fight with Yourself

"Is it just me or is it more rowdier than usual?" I ask Benimaru as we witness multiple brawls going on. 

"You're not wrong. It ain't even a festival, so what's the occasion?" Benimaru observes the chaos, "Oi cut it out!" He runs over to his fire soldiers fighting each other.

One of the soldiers yell, "How many times do I gotta tell ya?! It wasn't me!!"

The other soldier shouts back, "Fuck you! I saw you steal it with my own eyes!!"

Beni grabs one of the soldiers by the throat, "Are you sure it was him?"

"Yes! I'm sure!" The man adamantly proclaims. 

Beni let's him go and looks around at the other fights. I walk up to him, "Why would everyone decided to fight and be a dick on the same day?"

"I don't know but how can there be so many misunderstandings in one night?" 

As I'm looking around I see a familiar face...and suddenly I'm brought back to that awful night from ten years ago. It is the man who turned my family infernal. I use my ignition ability and charge at the ghost from my past. I slash my flaming wings through his chest.

"You...why're you here?" I ask darkly.

The man laughs, "Decided to visit my favorite test subject." His face starts to contort into one I'm unfamiliar with. "How long has it been? Ten? Eleven years?"

I punch the ugly bastard, "Who the hell are you? If you don't start talking I'll show you what ten years of rage feels like!" I use my second generation abilities to extend my flames as close to his face as possible.

He does something unexpected and begins to laugh, "My face?! You think I'm afraid of my face and body being burned! I use my flames on myself and other on a daily basis! You can do better than that!!"

I begin to choke him with all the force in my body. I pin his arms down with my legs as I lean in with all my force. "You know what? I don't mind taking your life away with my bare hands. Feeling your life slip away in my human hands!" I feel sick pleasure as I hear the murderer of my parents and brother choke and gasp for air. "Die! Die damn it!"

"Clarisse! What's happening?" I hear a familiar voice call out. I loosen my grip instinctively upon hearing his voice. Like I was snapped out of my spell of bloodlust.

The man I was in the middle of strangling stands up and jumps up high to the top of a roof before running off.

Beni crouches near me, "Clarisse, you suddenly ran off. What's going on?"

"Don't touch me!" I cry out as I wrap my arms around myself. "That man...he killed my family and he's fucking going to pay. He'll pay. I don't care what it takes to make him suffer...I'll do it damn it!"

Beni pulls me into him as he holds me, "Clarisse...I'm right here."

"Beni...I'm not a good woman. I desperately want to kill that man. Even now I'm still buzzing off the high...I'm sick."

"I don't care. If you want to kill him, I'll bring him alive to you. Hell I'll kill him myself if it makes you feel any better. Stand up."

He helps me to my feet as I shake violently, "Whoever is behind this madness is my parent's killer...or they know my parent's killer. Either way they're going to talk."

"There you are...let's go take care of this."

"Yes...let's."

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The man who turned my family into a living flame...his face is one I will be cursed to remember until I die. I believed or at least willed myself to believe that I had forgotten his face. I hated thinking about him since I used to think about him every waking moment for eight years. He had sandy blonde hair and an eyepatch; the sick look of pleasure that danced upon his face as he pressed that flask against my arm haunted me for months when I was a child. Even after I was taken into the church I would look under my bed and check outside my window looking for my personal boogie man. As the years passed, that fear turned into boiling hatred. A hatred that burned brighter than any flames. When I got older, I tried to shove that hatred to the back of my head to a low simmer...waiting for the heat to be put back on high once again.

Tonight...my hatred is boiling and bubbling over. Seeing him snapped me back to when he turned my families infernal...all those memories flooding back in as I took in his face. His face was never gone from my memories...just waiting for when I would see him again. Even as I'm helping Benimaru with all the fights breaking out, that man's chameleon face changing before my eyes still plays out in my mind. What does this mean? The man's face I have been cursing for years wasn't even real? Then who have I been fearing and hating all this time? Were they ever real?

Before I could continue into a deep despair, Beni pinches my side and I yelp in shock. "What was that for?!"

"You were spacing out and I figured you were fixating on that weirdo you tried to kill. As your captain, I need you to focus. Besides...that dark expression really doesn't suite you."

I clap both my hands against my cheeks three times to snap myself out of it. "Ahhh, ok I can do this. I'm sorry for being out of it. And when this is over I'm going to explain everything to you."

"Good. Now let's go. We need to go find the others." He takes my hand and leads me over to the abandoned matoi poles.

I hold onto him as I always down as the matoi pole takes off from the ground and into the smoke filled sky.