Hell ?

Francis exhaled, the smoke curling around his face like specters of the past. His voice dropped lower, heavy with something deeper than exhaustion—something ancient. 

"I grew up in a religious family. Always believed in heaven and hell." He scoffed, a bitter smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "But that day, watching them die, I realized something."

He took a slow step back, his gaze distant, as if staring into the abyss of his own memories. Then, his voice rose, the weight of years pressing down on every syllable. He stood up, his shadow stretching long across the bloodstained floor, his eyes burning with something indescribable—a revelation carved in suffering. 

"We don't need to die to go to hell," he declared. "We're already in it. Right here. Right now." His expression darkened, the flickering light casting deep lines across his face. "And if this isn't hell, then I pray the real one doesn't exist. Because if God has created something worse than this…" He let out a humorless chuckle, his voice edged with something close to despair. "Then I don't want to know what it looks like."

Perhaps it was the sheer weight of Francis' words, the raw finality in them, or maybe it was just the rotting sickness clawing through Allen's gut. Either way, his stomach lurched violently. He turned his head and retched, the acrid taste of bile stinging his throat. 

Wiping his mouth with the back of his trembling hand, he glared up at Francis. The pain in his body, the dread in his bones—all of it was momentarily drowned out by something sharper. Fury. 

"You're fucking insane, old man," he spat, voice hoarse but unwavering. "Do you really think that story justifies anything you do?"

Francis exhaled through his nose, the ghost of a smirk playing at his lips, but his eyes remained void—bottomless pits that had long since swallowed anything resembling humanity. 

"No, kid. It doesn't." His voice was calm. Too calm. As if they were discussing the weather rather than standing at the precipice of a brutal execution. "But it also doesn't need to."

Allen felt a chill creep into his bones, but it wasn't from fear. It was from the realization that this man—this executioner—had long stopped searching for redemption. He no longer cared if he was a monster. 

Francis took one last drag of his cigarette, then flicked it to the side. The ember hissed as it hit the blood-slicked floor, a dying star swallowed by the abyss. 

"Now, this old man will end his rant," he muttered. "So let's get this over with, kid."

Allen wasn't thinking straight anymore. He should have been terrified. His body should have been shaking, his instincts screaming for survival. But there was nothing. Just a haze of rage, regret, and exhaustion. The irony of it all almost made him laugh. 

And so he did. A weak, bitter chuckle escaped his lips, his head shaking slightly as he spoke. 

"Do you really think Dr. Stein and Alex will just let this go?" His voice wavered between bitter amusement and defiance. "Stein will do this again and again… the man knows no limits when it comes to this."

Francis' gaze flickered toward the door, where the others had been taken. 

"And Alex?" Allen continued, his breath shallow. "Well… Alex is just like me. A 'kid.'"

Francis sighed, rubbing his temple like a man burdened by an inevitability he had already accounted for. 

"Stein is important to the Republic. The smartest mind of this age. He's more useful alive than dead. And he knows damn well what consequences he'll face if he doesn't keep his mouth shut." Francis' expression darkened slightly, the weight of unspoken threats laced into his tone. 

"As for that Alex kid… we'll deal with him. But for now, I let him go so that Stein wouldn't overreact and do something even more stupid." 

The finality in his voice sent a shiver down Allen's spine. 

This wasn't just about power. It wasn't even about morality anymore. This was a world built on pragmatism, where survival outweighed conscience, where the strong dictated reality. 

And Francis? 

Francis had simply accepted that truth long before anyone else.

"Kid, I'll see if I can do anything for your mother," Francis said, offering a favor to the man he was about to kill.

Allen let out a strained chuckle, his voice laced with both sarcasm and anger. "Man, you really are a piece of work, aren't you, Mr. Francis?"

Through the pain, he managed a bloody smile. "You think you know everything, but Veilith… it's far more than even you realize. You're right—we weren't the first to discover it. But we were the first to do something with it. Something no one else dared to."

Francis exhaled smoke, his demeanor as composed as ever. Lighting yet another cigarette, he regarded Allen with disinterest. "What? What did you do with it, kid?" His tone was flat, bored—he just wanted to get this over with.

Allen smirked, the glint of defiance still burning in his eyes.

Francis sighed, already tired of the conversation. "You know what? I don't even care. As long as no one outside of you three knows whatever the fuck you did, it's not my problem."