Eliot tied up Father Agustin's mouth with the rest of the last remaining bandaids. He dragged Father Agustin to a wall where he positioned him upright. He then held Father Agustin's head down.
"I want you to see it."
Father Agustin cried a mixture of blood and tears. His grey eyes were dead. He couldn't do anything as Eliot cut his robes in pieces.
Eliot continued talking.
"You used to be good."
Eliot paused for a second
"You were just sick."
Eliot then ripped open Father Agustin's robes.
"So you joined the church. You thought if you prayed and prayed and prayed, The God of Sin will forgive you for your sick flaws. Maybe even cure you. You worked so hard. You descended up the ladder like an eagle and you were appointed the head of your very own church, but you never did get better."
Eliot held the scissors in one hand and said one last dramatic sentence before starting to snip.
"So you stopped praying."
Father Agustin screamed in pain. Muffled screams penetrated the walls and echoed through the orphanage. Even though Eliot tied his mouth closed Father Agustin was still arguably rapturing eardrums.
"I tied your mouth up so you wouldn't be heard past this room, but I guess I was simply too hopeful. You know there are children out there, I wouldn't want them to hear anything."
Eliot sighed. He held an icky sticky bit of Father Agustin in his hand. He was about to dice Father Agustin's legacy bringer, but he had nowhere to put the pieces he shredded off.
Like a lightbulb, Eliot's brain connected the dots.
"Since tying your mouth closed isn't going to work, I might as well not try at all, right?"
Eliot untied Father Agustin's mouth and put the bandaids aside. He thought he might need it later. And then Eliot stuffed Father Agustin's legacy straight down his throat. Father Agustin choked viciously, but it was no use. Eliot rammed it down deeper until Father Agustin had to swallow.
"It's funny seeing an atheist priest in the flesh. Well, bits of his flesh."
Eliot chuckled
"I digress. Where were we? O yeah."
"The moment you stopped praying was the moment you decided to fix your sickness yourself. You thought that exposure might fix your problem. The problem your mother left so graciously. In the end, you couldn't even bring yourself to hate her."
Eliot cut off another piece and stuffed it down Father Agustin's mouth. He didn't even wait for Father Agustin to stop screaming.
"So you started an orphanage."
This time Eliot started working quicker, he was afraid Father Agustin might bleed out. But he still refused to increase the size of his cuts.
"It went so well. You didn't dare to touch the children because your fear of the authorities was stronger than your sick desires. It worked so, so well. You thought you could fix it. Finally, after so many years."
Eliot smiled as he snipped off another piece. He made sure that Father Agustin could see the whole process.
"Your desire grew and grew, but it didn't matter. It could never topple the giant tower that was your fear of the authorities. You knew what they were capable of. Your dad found out the hard way. Two physiological traumas clashing with one another. It worked just too well. Father Agustin, you are a genius."
There was a pause as Eliot repositioned the scissors.
"But then Timmy died of dysentery."
Snip.
Eliot snipped straight through a vein and blood came squirting out. A shattering scream much louder than the rest followed. Like an earthquake, some cleaning products fell off their cabinets, while the closest perfume bottles shattered directly. Eliot's eardrums bled. His hands were covered in blood. He instinctively looked down to his feet. He didn't care for his underwear, but he was scared for his shoes. Thankfully his shoes were far away, neatly packed together hidden under the bed.
Eliot sighed. His ears popped and his mood was ruined. The blood dripped down from his ears and wiggled down his hair, dousing its glow. His cheeks feeling threatened by the competition poured out the blood like a tsunami. The streams joined together and slithered down Eliot's neck.
What was the chance of a mana current happening at the same time Father Agustin had a mana explosion? He glanced at Father Agustin passed out on the floor. He should wake up in a few seconds. Eliot stood up and washed his hands. He counted his losses. Three perfume bottles and a glass jar with little sweets. Not much, but he was going to need the pocket money for when he goes to magic school.
Eliot was just about done washing his face when moans and grunts slipped past his ears. He glanced at the pool of blood that the newly awakened Father Agustin was sitting in. He needed to quicken his pace before Father Agustin died on the floor. Eliot wouldn't want to waste all the effort he put in cooking Father Agustin specially preparing him for his next guest.
Eliot lightly wiped off the scissors before assuming his position in front of Father Agustin again. He took a deep breath and continued to speak after giving Father Agustin a hard slap to fully wake him up. Father Agustin was most certainly not thrilled, but could only cry.
"Anyway, Timmy died. You were horrified. The amount of effort you put in to clean up his poop covered body was astronomical. You did it yourself. Everything from caring for him up to his death and burying him, you did with your own two hands. You reported it to the police. But you didn't get the reaction you expected."
Cries escaped from Father Agustin's throat. Indistinguishable sounds of pleading. Eliot quickened the pace, the pill was wearing down.
"And then Noah died two days later and Thomas a week after. They were Timmy's friends so you assumed that they ate something funny eventually leading to their deaths."
"Child by child went down one by one but the police didn't care. Your friends, or 'colleagues', were getting ambitious and you just rode the ride to fraud. Of course, that didn't stop you from working hard on an escape plan. I praise your caution. But even cautious people get confident."
"Everything went as planned. The cops just didn't care and finally, your desires overtook the toppling tower of your fear for the police. So a child went missing. It was just like the special time you had with your mother wasn't it? Your mother was right there smiling warmly at you. She loved you now. You didn't care what you were doing, your mother's warmth enveloped you, for the first time in a long, long time. You were curing the sickness so well, but crashed and burned right then and there."
"Child after child just vanished, the dungeon beneath the church came in handy for your loud vicious activities, but you were just so convincing that even you're colleagues thought the children ran away because they were starving. There was even a case where one of the children tried escaping you and fell out the window, smashing their head into the ground. You told your colleagues suicide, right? You watched your colleagues descend into madness with guilt. They thought these things were happening because they were stealing money and letting the children go hungry."
"You didn't care. You were as disgusted of them just as you were disgusted of yourself. You didn't even leave them a glance of pity as they grew suspicious of each other and resorted to torturing one another in the dungeons as a reassurance of their loyalty. They exchanged their most valuable possessions, you know all the cult stuff, because it was the only way of keeping their paranoia in check. You as the head just stood there and watch them in scorn."
Eliot worked his way through Father Agustin's legacy. He was further along than he thought he would be. It was much smaller than Eliot was expecting it to be. But the pill was also wearing off quicker than he thought. Did Father Agustin not move enough during the struggle for the pill to take full effect? He said everything he wanted to say, right?
Eliot counted down the things he wanted to say. His mother was a child r*pist. His psychological trauma made him a child r*pist. Eliot made sure to take full advantage of his psychological trauma in subduing him. His father was murdered by the cops. He joined the church out of desperation. Didn't work and started an orphanage to cure himself. Didn't work and r*ped the children. Gaslighted his colleagues into believing it was them that killed the children. O yea. Eliot almost forgot.
"You should have smelled it by now. Your mother's perfume. I specially put it on for this occasion. Do you like it?"
Eliot smiled.
"Of course you do. You'd never hate your mother. It's frightening that even now you do not blame her or me. You only blame yourself. You haven't cursed me. You didn't even reassure yourself that you had no other option and it wasn't your fault like all the other criminals and colleagues. You fully accept that you are a monster. And you agree that you should go to hell."
"Despite all the things you have done Father Agustin, I admire you. You're able to craft the most intelligent plans. Your ability to directly face reality. And you're personality to only blame yourself if things go wrong. The capabilities you possess would have brought you far. If only it wasn't for your slut of a mother."
Father Agustin's eyes lightened up with anger. Eliot sighed. He didn't even show that expression when Eliot cut off his private part. But when he insulted his mother he was up and ready to curse.
"See Father Agustin you care just too much. You haven't lost a single slither of the care you have claimed to have lost. You care more than anyone else. You were always teaching us. You taught us the tough lessons, didn't you? You couldn't teach Brennan how to dance or teach me how to read, but you could teach us the way the world works. You always showed us the bad sides and the worst of humanity so that we can discover the light without falling into the dark. And when we do fall in the dark, make us thrive."
"You were even teaching me up to the very end weren't you? Some might argue that r*ping me was a bit of a harsh lesson, you would agree, you are sick after all and I walked in topless looking like your mother. If you could stop it you would. But the evil act you put up was something you could help. Even when you decided to 'pass on your legacy' you weren't doing it out of some evil agenda to cause infinite suffering and pain or loyalty to your mother and continuing to have her in this world through a new victim."
"It was a simple deadly warning. It's to show me the kinds of people I will meet and the consequence of messing with them. I was bold enough to walk in here and face you. You were scared for me, weren't you? You wanted to play the perfect villain up to your death. It would make this process of ridding you of your body parts much easier. You are a genius, Father Agustin. Truly you are."
"But the others do not know. They think you are the apex of evil. I won't ever tell them as well. This was how you wanted to end, right? Like the embodiment of the perfect villain. Of course, it wasn't part of your plan, because, to you, your life is more important than anything else, but if you had to go it would be like this, right?"
Eliot gazed into Father Agustin's eyes and found him hanging onto his tears.
Eliot snipped away at light speed racing against the blood pouring out like a waterfall. He really didn't want Father Agustin to die right now.
"You want to know how I know all this right?"
Father Agustin eyes slightly shifted up to focus on Eliot.
"I'm not telling you."
Eliot chuckled and cut off another piece.
"You taught me the most important lesson of all. The importance of information. When it came to secrets, I should always be the one using them. What's the point in knowing something and doing nothing with the information? The information might as well be false. And even more so, what's the point in forever keeping it? Everybody lies, but disclosing information to your advantage is better than lying. It's the hack to life. You can control how people will react and how they will interact. You can make a criminal a saint and a saint a criminal. Truth hurts. Truth evokes. It's much more effective than a petty lie."
"It's the handiest lesson I had since I came here, you know? Tell the truth but not the full truth. It's absolutely fascinating. I can march out that door right now and proclaim your innocence. I can lay out the evidence and information before them and they will march in here with a passion and kick the living shit out of you anyway. But they will be crying. I also don't have to do that. The power of information is immense."
Eliot happily cut off another piece and stuck it down Father Agustin's throat. Father Agustin didn't even struggle. He's already grown used to it.
"So I can't tell you how I got the information, but I can tell you where I'm going next. I don't have anything more to tell you anyway."
Eliot flung his scissors out and pointed at the room with big movements, emphasizing its size.
"You see this room?"
"Everything in it becomes mine as payment for subduing you. Of course, I did take it on myself to take the subduing part too far. But you get what you pay for and I am more than happy to get a bunch of pocket money. Anyway, subduing you was the easy bit. So instead of using something to knock you out quick as I promised, I used something cool and almost paid with my virginity. Of course, I wouldn't have done so if I couldn't assure my life, but I knew you wouldn't kill me so I gave you this super expensive drug that I spent all my money on."
"It inhibits certain enzymes that stop lactic acid from being turned back into pyruvate and what not. Of course, it gives your body a boost of its own lactic acid and tampers a bit with your liver and viola, lactic acidosis. The more you move the worse it gets. Of course, it goes away on its own after some time. I tested it twice on myself."
"I'll spare you the details, but it's fascinating, biology that is. That mana explosion you had just now couldn't have helped, but you should feel like you are constantly out of energy. It's like an infinite workout, but non of the benefits and only the cramps and the burns."
"That is what I call the apex of evil if you ask me."
Eliot raised his hand as he held up a dangly bit of Father Agustin and carefully placed it on Father Agustin's tongue.
"Anyway, tomorrow someone is going to come to pick me up and take me to The Royal Institute to study magic at the Magic Academy. I'll need a lot of pocket money for it. I already started burning bridges with a few thugs in town, not that I knew them, but I did steal their money, gaining a reputation. I loved their reactions."
And for the first time in a while, Father Agustin responded
"They won't accept you."
Eliot raised his eyebrow.
"It seems like the drug is wearing off much quicker than I expected. It doesn't matter though I'm only a few snips away from finished. Thankfully your genitals were small."
Eliot yawned and continued speaking.
"Who won't accept me? You mean the thugs? Of course not I stole their money."
Father Agustin slightly shook his head and coughed before continuing.
"No, I mean the Magic Academy."
Eliot looked at Father Agustin like he was stupid.
"Are you joking? Did I milk too much blood out of you? Of course, I'm going to get accepted. Have you seen my profile? I even added a cringy comment myself, praising me for my brilliance. It took a lot of effort to illegally obtain my profile purely to fix that nasty average comment from my brain dead teacher from last year. It didn't help that he had some weird sort of mutated variation of Daddy issues. He refused to give anyone a good evaluation out of honour for his father or something?"
Father Agustin muttered.
"You don't have a family."
Eliot's eyes shone brightly. His face lost all his expression in a terrifying apathy.