Wicked Implement

The silence was unbearable.

There was no roar of the crowd. No movement. No voices. Just the quiet gurgle of blood pooling beneath my father, soaking into the dirt, into my hands, into the very fabric of my being.

I could feel my pulse hammering in my ears, erratic, uncontrolled. My lungs struggled against the stabbing pain in my ribs, but it wasn't my body that felt broken.

It was me.

Zaphkiel stirred again, not with its usual analytical hum, but something closer to uncertainty.

[Query: Host's current objective?]

I didn't answer. Couldn't.

[Observation: Host is non-responsive. Calculating—]

"Shut. Up," I rasped, my voice barely more than a whisper.

I could feel Zaphkiel hesitate. It had never hesitated before. It had always spoken with clarity, with cold precision. But now, with my father's blood warm on my hands, with the weight of his memories sinking into me like a curse—

It hesitated.

"Pathetic." Declan's voice was calm. Too calm. "He died for nothing."

I didn't react. I couldn't.

I should have attacked. I should have torn him apart, should have lunged for his throat with everything I had left.

But I couldn't move.

I had lost. Completely.

Declan took a step closer. The blade in his hand was still dripping. Still warm from the life it had stolen.

My father's life.

The grief inside me twisted into something darker. Deeper.

A shadow flickered at the edge of the training grounds.

Then, before Declan could strike—

The doors to the arena exploded inward.

A gust of wind slammed through the training grounds, carrying the faint scent of ozone and steel. The torches wavered. Shadows stretched and distorted.

Declan barely had time to turn his head before a flash of gold and blue tore through the distance.

Reilan.

She moved like a phantom, blade drawn, her stance low, calculated, lethal. There was no hesitation in her expression—only the sharp, terrifying precision of a woman who knew exactly what she was about to do.

Declan reacted at the last second, raising his blade just in time to deflect the strike. Sparks screamed against steel as Reilan's force drove into him like a battering ram, his feet carving trenches into the dirt as he skidded backward. His arm trembled under the sheer impact, muscles straining against the momentum that threatened to topple him entirely.

"Is that all?" Declan sneered, rolling his shoulder as he steadied his stance. "I expected more from you, Reilan. Or have you lost your edge?"

Reilan's expression didn't change, but her grip on her sword tightened. "I should've ended you a long time ago," she said, voice low, measured. "Before you ever had the chance to do this."

Declan chuckled, his smirk widening. "Oh? So you do remember. And yet, here we are. You never told them, did you? Never warned the Tomaszewskis what was coming."

Her eyes flashed, the muscles in her jaw clenching. "I don't waste my breath on dead men."

Declan tilted his head, feigning curiosity. "Is that so? Then let's see if you can keep that promise."

The moment the clash broke, a deafening boom cracked through the air, sending a blinding arc of golden lightning into the ground between them.

Asmodeus.

He stepped forward, his coat whipping in the storm of his own making, golden eyes blazing with raw, untethered fury.

"Touch her again," he said, voice low, "and I'll erase you."

Declan's expression flickered. Annoyance. Amusement. Maybe even curiosity.

Then his lips curled into a smirk.

"Funny," he murmured. "That's what your monster friend of a Lord said—right before he died."

The moment the words left his mouth, Asmodeus moved.

The thunderclap of his next attack sent a shockwave through the arena, the ground cracking beneath his feet. Declan dodged—but not just barely. He moved with precision, pivoting smoothly to the side before retaliating in a blink. His blade cut through the air, slicing toward Asmodeus with terrifying speed. Asmodeus barely had time to raise his arm in defense, his bracers catching the edge of the strike with a sharp clang that sent vibrations up his arm.

"You're fast," Declan admitted, his smirk widening. "But speed alone won't save you."

Before Asmodeus could counter, Declan twisted, shifting his stance in an instant, and slammed his knee into Asmodeus's ribs. The impact sent him staggering backward, breath hitching. Reilan lunged forward to close the distance, but Declan was already in motion, intercepting her with a brutal backhand strike that knocked her blade off-course.

"You're both wasting my time," he sneered. "I expected better. But maybe killing this monster made you soft."

And then—

The pressure in the air changed.

Heavy. Crushing. Commanding.

Footsteps echoed across the ruined stone. Slow. Deliberate. Unstoppable.

A presence colder than the grave filled the space between us.

"Enough."

Hinata Saegusa had arrived.

His voice wasn't loud—but it stopped the fight.

The shift in atmosphere was instantaneous. The guards who had once loomed hesitated, stepping back. Even Declan, for all his arrogance, seemed to tense as the Feudal Lord's gaze fell upon him.

Hinata didn't speak again. He didn't have to.

His mere presence was a declaration.

A single command—unspoken, but absolute.

Stand down. Or be erased.

I barely felt the shift.

I barely felt anything.

But someone else did.

A harsh, venom-laced voice cut through the heavy silence, shattering the oppressive stillness like glass.

"You dare interfere, monster?" The head of House Dagan spat, his fury barely restrained as his glare locked onto Hinata. "Protecting that filth, shielding the very thing that should have been purged long ago? Do you think your status makes you untouchable? You—of all creatures—should understand what she is!"

His words dripped with venom, but Hinata remained unmoved, his expression unreadable, his presence as still as death itself.

"Careful, Dagan," Hinata murmured, his voice devoid of warmth. "You are treading on fragile ground. Speak well before you make a mistake you cannot take back."

Dagan's rage only deepened, his lips curling in open contempt. "You feign authority, but you're nothing more than an abomination wrapped in fine silk. How long have you played at being a lord, pretending your blood isn't tainted? And now you protect them—a family of monsters who should have been wiped from history the moment they revealed what they were!"

Murmurs rippled through the gathered noble houses. Some looked away, unwilling to voice agreement, while others clenched their fists, their long-held grievances finally bubbling to the surface.

"We have suffered in silence long enough," Dagan continued, his voice rising. "We tolerated the Tomaszewskis—endured their unnatural existence because it suited the balance. But now? Now they've shown their true nature. Now they kill without hesitation, without restraint. And you stand there, Hinata Saegusa, shielding them? What does that make you, then?"

Hinata remained unmoved, his stare cold enough to freeze the very air between them. "It makes me the only thing keeping you from being reduced to ash where you stand, Dagan. Choose your next words wisely."

Dagan sneered, his fingers curling into fists. "Then perhaps it is time we stopped tolerating you as well. The noble houses have whispered behind closed doors long enough—your rule is a stain on the order of this land. You are no lord, Hinata. You are a beast masquerading in human skin, defending the unworthy."

Murmurs of agreement rippled through the gathering. More than just House Dagan now. Faces, once cautious, now carried a glint of long-held resentment. A tide shifting, an inevitable storm brewing.

"You stand alone, Saegusa," another voice called from the crowd—Lord Valeria, stepping forward, his eyes alight with simmering resentment. "House Rellmont, House Valeria, and House Dracis have watched your rule crumble, and yet you still cling to power as if you are irreplaceable. Your leash on this land has loosened, and the time for change has come."

Murmurs rippled through the assembled nobles. The weight of years of discontent, of buried grievances, surfaced all at once. A slow, measured step sounded beside Valeria as Lord Rellmont spoke next, his voice sharp. "We have suffered under your governance long enough, Saegusa. You shield the Tomaszewskis, a family of beasts, and yet you call yourself our lord? We refuse to stand idly by any longer."

Lord Dracis crossed his arms, his gaze locked onto Hinata with open defiance. "You let monsters run rampant, and in doing so, you have proven yourself unfit to rule. If you will not step down willingly... then we will remove you ourselves."

The tension in the air thickened, heavy with the weight of something far greater than words.

A coup had begun.

Zaphkiel was still speaking to me—no longer the cold, detached entity it had once been. Its voice had shifted, softer now, almost human. Almost... feminine.

[Master] it murmured, a warmth underlying its usual mechanical precision. [You are slipping. Breathe. Focus on me.]

I barely registered its words. Barely felt the soft pulse of mana thrumming beneath my skin. But the voice persisted, a quiet thread tying me to reality when everything else was shattering apart.

[I will not let you break] Zaphkiel whispered. [Not now. Not yet.]

My fingers trembled, pressing into the cooling blood on my hands as if I could force time to reverse, as if I could will my father to take one more breath. But there was no warmth left to cling to. No pulse to reassure me. Only emptiness.

The world blurred at the edges. The voices around me—Dagan's venom, the whispers of the other houses, the growing tension in the air—felt distant. Hollow. Meaningless. My father was dead. And nothing I did could change that.

Then, through the haze, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Chiori."

Reilan.

Her voice wasn't sharp like usual. It wasn't cold, or teasing, or dry. It wavered, just slightly, as if even she didn't know what to say.

I blinked—vision still hazy, still distant—and for the first time, I saw myself in her eyes.

Broken.

Barely breathing.

Dying, in a way that had nothing to do with my injuries.

I tried to speak, but the words tangled in my throat, strangled by something too heavy to name. I had failed. I had lost. And now, there was nothing left.

"Stay with me," she said, gripping my shoulder tighter, her fingers pressing into my skin—not painful, but firm. Grounding. "You need to breathe."

Breathe? How could I breathe when the world had shattered? When the man who raised me, who protected me, who I didn't think believed in me, was nothing more than lifeless flesh on the ground?

I sucked in a sharp breath, but it hitched, jagged, and for a terrifying moment, I felt like I might collapse in on myself.

Reilan didn't let go. "I know," she murmured. "I know. But you have to stay here. Right here. With me."

I didn't want to breathe.

I wanted to scream. To shatter. To become something unrecognizable. The air in my lungs felt like shards of glass, every inhale a painful reminder that I was still here, still alive, while he was not.

I wanted to stop.

I wanted to claw into the earth, dig past the blood-soaked dirt, and find something—anything—to drag him back from the abyss. But there was nothing. Just the weight of loss, pressing down on me like the sky itself had collapsed.

The world had shifted. Irrevocably. There was no order to it anymore, no sense. Just the cold void where my father had once been.

Nothing was possible.

The realization settled over me like ice. Cold. Numbing. Final.

My father, Satoshi Tomaszewski was dead.

And I had been too weak to stop it.

A flicker of movement behind Rei—silent, predatory. Declan. The blade in his hand glinted under the dim torchlight, its path set towards her back, toward the weakness he saw, the vulnerability he had been waiting for.

"Reilan," he sneered, voice dripping with satisfaction. "Are you really too busy playing protector to finish what you started? Or are you just afraid?"

Reilan didn't respond. Didn't turn. But I saw the subtle shift in her stance, the way her fingers curled tighter around her blade. She knew. She sensed him. And yet, she was too in shock to defend herself.

Declan's smirk widened. "Just like your father, always looking the wrong way when it matters most."

But before his sword could reach us—before he could carve another wound into the wreckage of my world—something stopped him.

Not steel.

A hand.

Flesh met metal with a sickening crunch, and the blade did not cut—it shattered. Fragments of steel rained down, glinting like falling stars before scattering uselessly across the bloodstained ground.

The silence that followed was heavier than the world itself.

Declan's eyes widened, his expression torn between disbelief and something much closer to fear.

Mother.

She stood there, fingers curled around the remnants of his broken sword, her breath controlled, her frame no longer frail, no longer sickly. Something about her was wrong—too still, too quiet, as if the person she had been was slipping away, piece by piece. There was something unsettling in her expression, a flickering instability, as if reality itself was slipping through her grasp. Although her golden eyes were souless… they burned.

"You... should not be here," Declan muttered, voice barely above a whisper.

She did not answer. Did not acknowledge him. Her gaze never left Satoshi's lifeless form. Never strayed to the war brewing around her.

Asmodeus took a step forward, worry laced in every motion. "Auntie, you're—"

She didn't respond.

Didn't look at him.

Didn't look at anyone.

She only looked at Satoshi.

And at me.

The void in her eyes deepened.

Her lips parted, voice softer than a whisper, but carrying the weight of something final. "Rei..." Her fingers twitched, gripping the shattered fragments of the blade in her hand. "Was I too late again?"

Reilan inhaled sharply, her usual composure wavering. "Sis, you—"

But she did not respond. Did not acknowledge the worry in Rei's voice, nor the tension in Asmodeus's stance. Her gaze, unblinking, remained locked on the lifeless body before her.

Something inside her cracked.

And the world followed.