Knowledge and Power: Reborn into a society that only values strength.

'He's the only one left that can use magic…' Maybe I can take him to the abyss? No… The only reason that worked was because I had time to prepare for it before entering the fight… I could try and wrap my soul around him to stop him from using magic. But… That's even more risky… Ok… Let's try and figure out the spell then… It's not instant, so it can't be teleportation. If it was invisibility I would still hear his breathing or footsteps, or at least sense the manna he uses to quiet them… He doesn't have enough magic to use anything really high-level… Ok, from what I know the more restrictions a spell has the easier it is to cast right? So… The flower petals… They always blow away in the wind… But there is no wind, we're inside, which means the wind is artificial, created by him.'

I paused for a moment. 'This knife really freaking hurts…' My head started to ache as I started to lose focus on the spell and everything began to slowly move again. 'If I'm right… He's turning himself into flower petals and controlling his movements in that state with wind while making most of the petals invisible with illusion… A convoluted spell… But if that's the case it should be easy enough to disarm him…' I resumed time, twisting my arm with a scream and locking his blade between my bones. As I tried to punch him again he began to use the same trick, but as I suspected, he wasn't nearly precise enough to take his blade with him when I was attached to it. If his magic was stronger than mine maybe he could have taken my whole arm, but it wasn't, so his manna couldn't get into my body without me letting it in.

He let go of the blade and took a step back. 'Finally. You're mine!' Before I could knock him out the head of the family stuck a blade straight through the side of his neck. I could see the light in his eyes slowly go out before he suddenly fell to the ground. Chills covered my entire body as I froze stiff. 'He was just a kid… I mean… He was trying to kill us… But he couldn't have been more than like 12… Was it really his fault that his parents raised him to kill people? But now he's dead… I wasn't thinking about what my allies were doing… This is my fault… I couldn't see the big picture… I…' My head began to ache more as my arm throbbed and my stomach began to heat up. As I looked down I could see blood pooling around my stomach. 'Oh, I see… He stabbed me the first time too… Trading blows when I broke his shoulder…' My head began to become fuzzy as my eyes turned orange. 'This is bad…'

So many feelings and emotions flooded together that my mind went blank. I wasn't sure if I was about to vomit, breathe fire… Or if my stomach just hurt from the hole in my side. Even if it was shallow because of my thick plating over the area, it still ached. My mind felt like it was splitting in two, half of me wanting to burn down the whole building and rip them all apart, and the other half wanting to run far away. I fell on my hands and knees as more people died around me and screams filled the air. Just before I snapped though, I had one completely arbitrary thought pop into my head. 'I'm glad Mo isn't here…'

Some frantic part of me thought maybe I could save the boy for some reason, rushing to his side, but of course, it was hopeless. The knife the family head was made for his enormous hands, and the blade was thick enough that when I lifted up the boy's neck the thin strands of sinew holding it on began to tear. His head fell as I grabbed the knife. After all I had seen though, it didn't even make me sick, no more than I already was. In my mind he was already a corpse, and so no different than any other I had fought… That's what I told myself, but… My eyes started to water as Ice erupted from all around me completely immobilizing everyone and covering the whole floor in giant spikes that ruptured walls and splintered bones. Just like that the fighting was over and my body was emptied of manna and chilled with a hollow feeling inside replacing my anger.

The head of the family turned back to me. "I must not have finished him off. Good work noticing."

'Good work? Oh… That's right… I said he was the one with the ice magic… I… Really used up a lot of manna doing that… Oh right… I'm losing blood too… Should speed up healing enough to close the wounds…' I focused and absorbed the manna from the dead boy as it leaked off into the air, using it to close my wounds and standing up, my stomach twisting even more from what I was doing. "There are four unconscious in the rooms upstairs. I couldn't be sure who was who… So I knocked them out."

"Hm… That's fine. You're right, this wasn't an assassination, so treating it differently would be wise." He walked to the massive ice spikes and began snapping them, carving through them like butter with his daggers and freeing those that he knew were loyal, leaving those in question trapped and carefully sorting them all out. In the end, all the traitors were locked in the dungeon underground and each one would be tried individually.

Before I knew it we were back on the bridge overlooking the waterfall. "It's the same…" I muttered. It wasn't red or white, the view was the exact same, as if nothing had happened, as if I hadn't done anything… As if no one had died… For the first time, I started to understand that melancholic feeling Mo had in her eyes, and what she meant when she spoke about washing her hands.

"We're not done yet…"

I turned to look at him as his eyes sorrowfully gazed out at the same view. "Stop taking the pellets… And when your blood turns white find a man you love and have children… Then… I want you to leave this place… There is no meaning in death. Nothing ever changes…" He turned and started walking towards the main family's manor, opening the massive double doors that lead to his room. Something wasn't right though. An unnatural black void shined from the other side. It wasn't the abyss, but more like a curtain of darkness to block vision. "This is my last order to you…"

'What is he even saying at this point? We won… Didn't we? Who could possibly be in that room except Mo's mom? Much less someone who would be strong enough to kill him' It clicked as I started piecing together all his sad expressions. 'No way… His wife was a part of the group trying to kill him? But even then, she wouldn't be strong enough to beat him… Unless… He's planning on letting her. I'm getting ahead of myself…'