"I had my revenge," Yuuto said somberly, staring at the sword in his hand.
It was a familiar shape, flat and straight.
Designed to cut through flesh like a razor rather than the larger, more jagged swords he usually summoned. Those had been created to break other blades. It wasn't European or Japanese, his usual preferences.
This was the length of one of his usual blades, but its colouring proved it wasn't a standard sword.
One side of the flat sword pulsated with a black so dark it seemed to suck in all light.
The other side was radiant with white light, warm and bright as if to eclipse the sun.
Yuuto's Balance Breaker.
Something he had strived to attain for years yet had always been beyond his reach.
He hadn't attained it when he achieved his long-sought revenge.
"And?" Eren asked.
"And what?" the Knight asked, unsure what his Senpai was asking about.
Eren paused as if hesitating on the exact words to use. When he finally spoke, it was in a surprisingly gentle tone.
"What did it cost?"
Ah. Right.
Eren's vengeance had cost him everything, hadn't it?
It left him without friends and family, to live out his final years of life alone in a foreign country.
It had cost him the guilt of the innocent blood on his hands, the regret of the future that could have been, and the love of his life.
It made sense he would want to know what it had cost Yuuto.
Which made the words the Knight spoke all the more brutal.
Yet it had to be said.
"Nothing." There was disbelief in his tone as if even Yuuto couldn't believe them even as he spoke. "It was risky and dangerous, and things could have gone wrong in a dozen different ways." The blond laughed lightly as if the idea of him surviving was funny in and of itself. "But I did it. We did it. We all made it out, and it cost me nothing."
If Yuuto had expected Eren to be jealous or disgruntled at the younger boy's fortune, he would have been disappointed.
"Good," Eren grunted with a nod.
It seemed like the blind boy was prepared to accept that is the final word and end the subject.
Yuuto, though, was not ready to end it. He wanted to talk about it. Needed to talk about it.
Needed to be understood.
Even if he had to be vague about the details, Yuuto wanted to explain, to justify himself to the only person in the world he felt could understand him. He wanted his Senpai to know.
"I almost failed," he confessed, and the words came tumbling out from there. "My target was right before my eyes. Not those girls, but the actual man who had hurt me. Who killed all my friends and left me for dead. Valper Galilei." The name was spat with vile venom. Even now, the name tasted foul on his lips. "He was right there. But Koneko was injured." Before Eren could ask, the Knight hurried to answer. "She's fine now. But she was in danger. So were Issei and Asia. But Valper was getting away."
"What did you choose?" Eren asked somberly, understanding what Yuuto was trying to convey without needing it explicitly spelled out.
"I chased Valper," the Knight said, his voice flat. "Despite my promise to Rias, I chased him."
He paused and stared at the sword in his hand. Black energy pooled and swirled.
"But?" Eren prompted.
"But the weights on my scale were all wrong," Yuuto confessed. "I barely made it ten feet. My feet wouldn't move. He was right there, and I couldn't move. My feet. My back. My heart. It all weighed too much."
That had been when he attained his original Balance Breaker.
[Inferno]
A demonic sword subspecies. A blade of evil. A twisted, cruel sword meant to wreak vengeance on his enemies.
It had been HIS Balance Breaker.
For the short time he had it.
His first and only act with that evil sword was to save his friends.
"You made your choice," Eren nodded, and something in his voice tore the Knight's attention from his sword to look at the older boy.
Sympathy. Pride. Maybe... approval?
"Was it like that with you, Senpai?"
"No." Eren shook his head, and all emotion drained from his voice again. "I kept running. Not just once or twice. Over and over, I chose to keep running. I continued to run forward for my revenge even as people, corpses, were left in my wake."
"What changed?" The Knight couldn't help but ask, remembering their first conversation. "When did you stop running just for vengeance?"
It spoke of their friendship that Eren only paused for a heartbeat before answering.
"When I fell in love and saw what it would cost," Eren said gravely. "I never stopped running. I just saw a face I didn't want to leave behind. I just saw the people I would trample to get it. You know the rest. I discovered a way to have my vengeance and ensure they'd live long, happy lives after I was gone. A way to end it all. That made it worth it to me, despite the cost."
"Better than a half-assed reason like mine," the Knight laughed in derision at himself. "I just couldn't live with myself if I kept running."
"It was the right decision," Eren chastised lightly. "It is very rare and precious to be able to look back at a choice and say with certainty that you made the right one. We are always asking ourselves, 'What if.' You made a choice. You had your vengeance, which cost you nothing you couldn't pay. Take solace in that."
He was right, Yuuto knew, even if Eren didn't understand just how lucky they had all been to survive Kokabiel.
Not just survive, the Knight corrected himself. Benefit from.
And none more so than Kiba Yuuto.
Not only had he managed to kill the man responsible for all his pain and loss, but he had also managed to destroy a reforged Excalibur.
Most importantly, Yuuto had met his friends one final time in that remnant of souls harvested from their bodies.
He had seen their spirits, their Light, and knew they forgave him. For continuing to live, for surviving when they all died.
That Light was here. In Yuuto's blade. It always would be with him. It reassured him. Comforted him.
Absorbing that Light had led to a mutation in his Balance Breaker.
The dark, jagged and cruel blade of [Inferno] had given way to the flat sword in his hand.
[Purgatorio]
A sword for cutting and killing, but only what needed to be cut.
No longer HIS blade, it was now THEIR Balance Breaker.
A disposable blade perfect for someone who could forever remake it.
Perfect for children tossed away, yet coming back over and over until they had their vengeance.
Perfect for a man whose only salvation could come from the hands extended to him by others.
Staring at the sword in his hand, the Knight smiled wryly. His Balance Breaker imitated blades he had only seen three times in his life. He finally had a sword like the people he admired most.
Souji-sensei would be disappointed it was not a katana.
But Eren was right.
Yuuto dissipated the sword into motes of black and white light.
"You were right, in the end," the Holy Demonic sword wielder said. "My vengeance became a tangential thing. Something I wanted, but it wasn't all I wanted."
"Good," Senpai nodded. "Getting revenge is satisfying. Anybody who says it isn't is lying. But it is not all that the world has to offer. Men like us, sometimes find a new target when we have our revenge. A new grudge. That is where the danger is. Even if we claim our new target, it will never feel the same as the first. And like an addiction, you will always be chasing that feeling down. You need to find the beauty of life away from vengeance."
Yuuto could understand that. He still didn't like the church and the way they had turned a blind eye to the tragedies that benefited them.
It wasn't impossible that in another life, or if he had made another choice, he would have pursued vengeance against everyone involved or who had benefited from his pain.
But...
The Knight remembered a broken blade in the dirt, the blood of his Senpai still staining its razor edge.
Rias had taken that blade to have people examine Eren's blood, hoping for a cure, but Yuuto could still see that crimson-stained sword in his mind.
The Kiba Yuuto who pursued the path of vengeance to the end would have picked up that blade and sliced his new comrades' throats. He'd have gone Stray for his vengeance.
That Kiba Yuuto would not look at the lost, betrayed, and hurt Xenovia Quarta, his fellow Knight, and remember Eren's words.
Yuuto understood her in that moment of terrible realization.
God was dead.
Her entire life had been a lie. She was lost. Alone. Unsure what to trust and who to blame.
There was evil in the world. Kiba Yuuto still firmly believed that, and his blade was there to cut them down.
But people? People were just people.
So Kiba Yuuto extended his hand to the woman he had tried to kill.
Issei, Asia, and now Xenovia.
When had he become someone to look to for guidance?
The idea made the Knight laugh lightly.
Still, it was the role of Seniors, wasn't it?
To guide their Juniors.
"What's funny?" Eren asked, and Yuuto realized he had been silent for a while.
Yuuto decided to skirt the truth a bit.
"Xenovia, the girl we almost killed, whose guardian you almost laimed?" Eren nodded to show he remembered her. "She's going to school here now. She's part of the club. She might even visit you."
"I... see," Eren said slowly, clearly confused. "She here of her own free will, right? To join the club of the people she fought only a few days ago? She didn't seem to like you very much."
"She did," the Knight reassured the older boy. "She recently had a disturbing revelation about people she used to trust. Rias offered to take her in, and she accepted. I was laughing because I realized I had some really interesting Juniors. I wouldn't have believed it if you told me who they were a year ago."
"Ah," Eren nodded gravely. "Enemies can become allies if the cause is right and interest aligns. They can even become lovers. I think that is what happened to my best friend, though I can't say for sure. Just know it will take time if you want to pursue something like that."
"No, no," Yuuto laughed lightly, waiving off the idea. "I am still not certain I want anything to do with romance, to be honest. At least not now. And if I did, Xenovia isn't really my type."
The former exorcist wasn't unattractive by any standards. Issei had put it best, if crudely, while they were looking for the Exorcists the other day, before the whole mess with Kokabiel.
'Have you seen a pair of glorious Oppai hidden by an ugly cloak?'
"You don't have to fall in love," Eren allowed. "And romance isn't for everyone."
"I am not opposed to it," the Knight hedged, wondering how to put it into words without sounding like... well, like Issei. "It's just that girls my age seem so... immature. I don't think they're stupid," he hurried to clarify. "Just... There's a gap, a divide between how people my age should feel and how I usually feel. Am I making sense?"
"In a way," Eren tilted his head. "You know my situation as well as anybody. I might give advice when asked, but my experience with love is... bad. Or at least not normal. I can understand your feelings, though. For the longest time, I couldn't understand why everyone else didn't feel the same rage and passion as I did. It seemed so simple to me, so obvious, that anybody who disagreed with me wasn't just wrong. They were cowards. It took a long time for me to realize I was the odd one, not them."
"I know I am the weird one," the Knight said wryly. "The need for revenge always burned hotter with me than it did with the others. I couldn't help it though."
"I don't think that's wrong," Eren said plainly. "Especially now that you have accomplished your goal. All I will say is that you must find something that ignites that spark again, even if it is not as bright. Rias asked me to give Issei love advice, and it seemed to help, but that is for him. All he thinks about is girls. You can find anything you want that keeps you moving forward. Romance is but one option. There are others."
"I am not against falling in love," Yuuto said slowly, putting his thoughts together.
It was for reasons like this that talking to Eren was so enjoyable despite the dour topics they covered. Before sitting on the bench, the Knight hadn't given any deep thought to where he wanted to go from there.
"I even had a crush, once upon a time. I was younger. Barely a boy. And she is older, much older, so I never gave it serious thought."
Age differences weren't a big deal for devils, but Yuuto knew the woman was also a reincarnated devil and considered him a child. It had been the emotions of a troubled and unaware boy.
He hadn't seen her in years, so the feelings had long faded. He did remember the gentle curve of her lips when she gave one of her rare smiles. That had stuck with him every time he thought about his 'ideal' type.
"Love has always been something for others, not for me. A lot of things were like that."
"Now they are not," Eren said soberly. "Now you have an unknown future ahead of you. That is scary. But you are free to decide what you want to do. But what do you want? What future do you want to build?"
"I want to be a better cook."
Both boys had a moment of surprised silence as the words slipped from the blond's mouth.
"What?" Eren's voice wasn't filled with disbelief so much as bafflement.
Yuuto was just as surprised but started to explain himself as the thoughts came to him.
"I like cooking," he said as much to himself as to his Senpai. "Always have. But Akeno is better. I never thought about it before, but now I think I want to be better than her. Especially at baking."
"Ok," Eren nodded slowly, still clearly thrown by the unexpected admission but willing to go along with it. "It is not a bad goal. I... can't really help much with it. I am a terrible cook. Though I am very good at cleaning."
"You can taste test," Yuuto said absentmindedly. Now that the idea had come, inspiration flashed through his mind. "A bakery. That's what I want. One day, I'll open Isaiah's bakery. That's the goal I'll pursue for now. It might be a small one, and I might change my mind later, but it is something I can work towards."
"There is no dream too small," Eren said, and there was no mistaking the approval in his voice. "Only too big. A bakery is a fine dream. Why 'Isaiah'?"
"That was my birth name," Yuuto explained. "Before Rias took me in and gave me my current one. I still want to be 'Kiba Yuuto.' I am not Isaiah anymore, but I don't want to forget."
Isaiah had died with his friends, and Kiba Yuuto had been born from that child's body.
But just like he now carried his friends with him in his sword, he would carry Isaiah and his dream.
For hours, a Senpai and a Kohai conceived of the greatest bakery the underworld would ever know under the darkening light as they sat on the bench.