Chapter 2: Neverending Nightmares Not Natural Nevertheless Numerous.
[Host has not reached zero in a single day]
[Trigger system activating]
[15 Triggers Left]
[Trigger 15]
[Ability: Cutting]
Trigger system? Am I dreaming-
[Scenario Starting]
A moonlit night.
A boy walks softly on a grassy path. He walks slowly. Something was tying him down. Not physically however. Quite the opposite.
The boy was the son of a blacksmith. He learned how to smith weaponry and armour but also parts for carpentry and horse riding. He wanted to follow in his father's steps.
He and his father lived in a small house in the deepest parts of the forest. Before the boy was born, the father was a blacksmith for a group of royal assassins. A group called The Silencers. They were a secretive order that served the emperor.
That's when he met the boy's mother, an assassin born and raised into the other. The two met and over the course of a couple years, they fell in love. The man didn't like to see his lover constantly put herself in danger in service for a ruler who saw her as a tool that could be disposed of and replaced very easily. The woman too was unsatisfied with her life, unsatisfied with only seeing crimson red or midnight black.
So they ran away. They ran and they ran and they ran until they settled in a village. They had a son. The woman died in childbirth. The man was devastated.
What were their efforts for? They had just gained freedom and yet they weren't even able to enjoy a year of it. She gave him purpose, he gave hers. Did not of it ever matter?
Then the man was given a new purpose. His son. So, he moved far away from the village and built a home of his own. Days and nights, he toiled which turned into months and years. He built his home.
However, he felt empty. The table where he sat and ate always had an empty seat. But at least he had his son. At least he had family...
The boy stopped at the empty house. His gaze fixed at the door; he wasn't looking at it. No. He was somewhere else. In an isle of memories, reminiscing his childhood.
His father was a strong and earnest person but at the same time, he was kind and caring. Despite all the weapons he made for war, he hated fighting, he hated death, blood and violence. He raised the boy to not be a fighter nor a coward. He raised him to be a pacifist. "Help others and you help yourself" was a phrase that came to mind.
Yet those memories and thoughts twisted itself.
Boy: Help others?
He can't help but look back at the thousands he had slain. Thousands he had slaughtered.
He can't help but wonder what expression would that little girl have had her father not returned home in a casket.
He couldn't help but wonder how that woman would have looked if she didn't have to bury her own two sons.
He can't help but wonder what life that boy would have taken, had he not picked up a sword and tried to avenge the death of his father. Had he not swung at him.
He has ripped away children, fathers, mothers, friends and lovers. Every time he took a life, he stole all the bad and all the good that person could have experienced. All the evil they could have caused and all the good. All the suffering they could cause to others and all the joy they would bring.
He had become everything his father hated. Everything his mother and father tried to leave behind.
A murderer.
A killer.
A monster.
The boy outstretched his hand and pulled open the door, entering the house. The floor creaked as he trudged onward. The walls had scratch marks decorating every inch of it, as if made by a wild animal.
Every step felt like an eternity as growls from a different room grew louder and louder. This house had not been a home for years. It hadn't been taken care of in years. Not since he left.
The boy stepped forward and looked at his….. father.
His skin, a bluish inhuman grey. His nails are more like claws covered in blood. His eyes, bloodshot. His throat made barely audible sound from continuous years of screaming. Despite his joints and muscles never even being stressed or used in the years since the boy left, the moment his "father" saw him they all tensed, decades of inactivity and then suddenly every part of his body all strained as he leaped towards the boy.
The chain around his neck nearly tore his head off. If his father still felt pain, he would've felt his muscles cramp and his body scream going from underused and overworked in less than a second.
The boy kneeled down, unflinching, as his father tried to claw at him and devour him. It wouldn't be the first time his father tried that. Nor would he be the first person to try that.
Boy: I talked to them.
The boy stared at the ground.
Boy: I talked to priests, physicians, doctors, alchemists, mages, witches- I talked to everyone who would listen. If they didn't want to listen, I would make them.
The boy grew silent as he once again spoke up.
Boy: Hopeless.
His eyes grew dark.
Boy: They called you hopeless.
His eyes emanated bloodlust.
Boy: Dangerous they said. A threat to humans.
His expression softened.
Boy: And I agreed. I searched and I walked and I travelled everywhere my legs could take me. Decades passed so quickly.
Boy: I promised to only return when I found a cure.
The boy looked towards his father. Looking into his eyes only to see a soul filled with primal hunger and rage.
Boy: I've let you suffer long enough. I knew it was impossible. Ever since the first doctor said so. As time went on, my doubts turned to suspicions and then turned into the cold bitter truth.
Boy: I had left you here. I had abandoned my father and used you as an excuse to ignore you. To run away from all of this. To forget that you existed.
His eyes filled with tears.
Boy: There was never a cure. Because you died long ago. When they found you, poisoned you and we ran from the village, you told me you were fine. That the poison was dud.
Boy: You knew that I saw right through you. That I could hear your pained screams every night. That I could see you pray more and more every day. That I could see your body change. That I could see that my father was slowly dying.
The boy bowed down, slamming his head on the floor.
Boy: I promised that I would return with a cure. You taught me to never break a promise, no matter what. Despite everything that I've been through and all the horrors I've committed, I promised, as I did that day to never break one.
The boy stood up, unsheathing his blade. These motions were familiar to him. Too familiar.
Boy: It's time I stopped letting you suffer. It's time...
He breathed deeply.
Boy: I let you rest.
He gripped the sword tightly, and in a single moment, he had lost the only family he had in this world. In a single moment, the one person who cared about him, died.
The boy watched his father's body collapse to the floor, his decapitated head roll before hitting the chain and stopping.
Boy: It's time I rest too.
The boy dropped his katana and knelt down. He unsheathed his tantō and felt comforted at the thought that his hands would never have another life again.
Boy: Please. I just want to see you again...
He plunged the blade into his stomach and disembowelled himself.
And with that, his tale ended.
The world's deadliest swordsman.
The world's most hated villain.
The world's most loyal son.
Dead.
Altair gasped for air. He crawled up from the floor and looked at his stomach. No wounds. Did they heal already or was it just a dream? Of course it wasn't a fucking dream.
I felt those sixteen years. I felt what it was like to kill my father with my own hands and I felt those two decades I spent falling in love with her and running away and I felt as I watched my husband cry and I realised I would never get to see my son in the world and I felt those sixteen years in that old house. A prisoner in my own body.
I felt it all. Every second and every moment and every emotion and every night I laid awake wondering if I was a good son or if I ruined my son's future making him stay in this claustrophobic shack or if it was my fault my husband and son had to live forever looking behind their shoulders in case there was a blade at their necks or if my son who I loved so much and who I hurt so badly would ever return to me.
I felt it, as I killed a loving father. I felt it, as I thought what would happen to my family as I died. I felt it, watching my father die in front of me. I felt it, having to take care of my daughter by myself. I felt it, trying to avenge my father only to end up as another body my mother had to bury alongside my father.
I felt it. What it was like to cause suffering and what it was like for the person who suffered.
All of it.
[Cutting]
[4]
[Users are able to easily cut apart almost anything, whether with a weapon, an extremely focused point of an object, body part or power]
[14 Triggers Left]
NO PLEASE-
[Trigger 14]
[Ability: Power Fluctuation]
I WENT THROUGH ENOUGH TRAUMA FOR A SINGLE TRIGGER-
[Scenario Starting]