Just Another Monster

After the initial impact... I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but I opened my eyes slowly, watching black smoke float over me.

I was absolutely certain I had landed in Hell for all of the things I did, and I lightly smiled while holding my right arm up in the air.

That was it... that was my life... I stopped Cole, I didn't let him get my body... I won after all.

I tried to pick my left arm back up... but nothing was there. Only a loose sleeve, lying gently on the ground.

"Dammit," I mumbled, laughing off the sadness I started to feel.

"YOU MOTHER FUCKER! ASTERIO! YOU'VE RUINED ME!" I heard from behind me.

Huh...? That's impossible... I'm dead... why do I hear yelling?

I sat up at ninety degrees, looking all around in the black smoke for answers... when I saw a blue orb of strands in my dead, left hand.

Lying beside my ruined arm was a charred body. The skin on it was charred, the hair was burnt to a crisp, and the eye sockets were emptied with gelatinous liquid within them.

Was this my body or something?

I looked at it further... watching it's features become more and more feminine as I traveled down the body.

Then, I got to the burnt arms, clutching a broken Mahina Blade in her arms.

Avie...?

Avie...

AVIE!

I desperately clung to her body, trying to push strands into her charred corpse as she remained limp on the ground.

I can't be far from death...

[Lifespan Reduction: FOUR HOURS REMAINING]

Why wasn't I dead?! Why did I still have time?! Could it be that Avie... sacrificed her own life, just so I could have a little time left?

No... this wasn't right...

"DID WE WIN, ASTERIO?! TELL ME SKY IS DEAD!" I heard in the smoke again.

Whatever kind of stability I once had in my head was absolutely ruined. I was losing my mind, knowing that somebody else died because of me.

I started to hysterically laugh, cackling in the cloud of black smoke as it the wind started to blow it away.

Dried magma started to whittle away in the force of the wind around me, pushing it away until finally, at long last, Cole stood without his right arm, about a hundred feet away.

"Hehe... you are still alive... even after all that... after hitting Asterio so hard with an attack I didn't even know about, that you wiped him off of the face of the Earth... you killed him... with one attack... how the fuck did you do that? Is it with that charred bitch beside you?!" Cole shouted out to me.

My mind started to crack, and the focus I had on Cole was immovable. I watched his body slowly as tears started to flow from my eyes. It was uncontrollable...

"HAHAHA! LOOK AT THAT! You are a bitch after all... crying because you're not strong enough to save your comrades... look at that, Sky Asterio... you're just another monster, even after all of this time. You're no Hero, you're no Villain... you're worse... you're neither," Cole said to me, cackling while watching me cry.

"Why should he get to live?"

"Eat his throat."

"Make him suffer."

"Gut him."

"Kill his family."

A variety of thoughts filled my mind as my head began to shake. I couldn't break eye contact with him as I began to cry more, and rage started to encapsulate me. I couldn't think straight anymore... but I wasn't shrouded in a veil of red.

I started to shake in anticipation, watching Cole trot around while laughing...

"Look at that! You are worth nothing! YOU ARE WORTHLESS, SKY ASTERIO! YOU COULDN'T SAVE ANYBODY? FROM DOMIN TO AVIE! YOU BRING DEATH ALL AROUND YOU!" Cole told me.

Through all of my tears, I felt my left hand twitch. The orb of blue strands was starting to sink into my hand, giving it vitality once more.

The White Stone on my left hand started to turn blue, and once more, I saw the text in my eyes.

[It was my choice. I'm sorry, I wanted there to be another way. Goodbye, Master]

It was enough. It was the straw to break the camel's back.

Everything amassed into one single spurt of Wrath that was enough to lift my legs up once more.

I took one step further toward Cole, with the wishes with my brain amplifying as I got closer. Each step I took enticed me more, until the seventh step, where my eyes flickered.

The anger manifested into something so complex... something so hateful... something plagued with Wrath. I was impressed it came from me.

[GAZE OF WRATH UNLOCKED]

My eyes exploded in strands as they wrapped around my face. Golden strands shot up my forehead, down my cheeks, and past my temples as they wrapped around my entire head. It was so painfully plagued with Wrath that the tears from my eyes were the only thing keeping them moist enough not to burn out of my skull.

When Cole fell under my gaze, he instantly fell to his knees, and became queasy enough to throw up. My gaze was so powerful, so threatening, that he couldn't move...

"What... is... this...?" He said out loud.

As I took one step forward, the ground underneath me exploded, cracking, and launching strands almost two hundred feet with every step.

I continued to walk forward toward Cole, clutching my left hand tightly while remembering Avie's wish to find another solution.

"It's like... Fear Gaze..." Cole muttered as I stood right above him.

"You're fucking dead," I said.