“Now let’s see, where are you keeping them… Is it in that building there, on the fourth floor, in one of the empty classroom, third one from the left? I assume from the way you’ve stopped breathing, I’m pointing in the right direction, aren’t I?”

“Put your hand down!”

“Or you’ll what? Break my left arm and put it in a sling? You’re welcome to try.”

“I’m warning you…”

“It’s a good place to make out or in your case, to keep hostages. Not too near nor not too far. Hardly anyone goes there now since they’ve opened the new wing in the east building. And only three people there to guard the hostages? You should have brought more. That building really has a perfect view of this courtyard. Your accomplices are watching us from there, waiting for you to give them the signal to execute the Marven Jaste and Athorius Devs if I don’t comply.”

“That’s right, I’m in control here! Now stop pointing at that place and put your hand down. One signal from me and your friends will-“

“Are you in control? If so then go ahead, give the signal. You think you cannot be harmed by me because you have the lives of my friends in your hand? That the laws of this school that forbid a student from gravely harming another when there is no duel involved will protect you from me? You think no one dares mess with you because of who your father is? That you are safe from any form of punishment because you are Master Haithur’s most cherished disciple? You think having these four things give you power over me? That it will deter me from stepping forward and touching a hair on that pretty little head? Well, go a-fucking-head then. Give them the signal.”

“…”

“Oh hey, I can see one your friends now. Let me wave at him. Dude must be confused as fuck as to why I’m pointing and waving at him. Should be crapping his pants as well.”

“I’m serious. I’ll do it!”

“I know you’re serious. You would have done it earlier, if it wasn’t for the small fact that I’m holding your life in my hand. You see, a hostage situation will only work if one side has the upper hand. But we are at a stalemate here, you have my friends, and I have you by the balls. Ergo, our current impasse.

“Fuck you! You ain’t got shit on me!”

“Really? Surely a fine gentleman such as yourself must have a few skeletons in the closet. Or should I say, a few skeletons in a sealed well? Ah, I’m going to put my left hand down now. All this pointing is making me tired.”

“…”

“You’ve stopped breathing again. Yes. I know about the disappearance of your stepmother and baby stepbrother. Now, the question of the day is, does your father know that you have something to do with why they’re missing?”

“Bullshit! You don’t have any proof.”

“Do I now? So if I were to tell your father to look behind the loose shelf in your bedroom, he won’t find anything? Not even a locket perhaps, given by your father to his second wife. You shouldn’t keep mementos, you know. That’s how serial killers get caught.”

“How could you possibly know all this…”

“Even if you managed to race back home and get rid of the evidence, do you think I am incapable of convincing your father about your monstrous crime? All I have to do is whisper to his ears about how angry you were with him for remarrying after the death of your mother. That you were jealous when your father smiled when he’s with your newborn baby brother, something he had never done when you were in his presence. How you opened the sealed well in your garden and dropped your baby brother in. The look on your face when you pushed your stepmother in when she went to investigate, alerted by your false cries.”

“It can’t be…”

“Your father would be very interested to know how you laughed gleefully when you sealed the well again despite of her pleas. How you smiled from the shadows as your father tore apart the countryside looking for his missing wife and son. The amount of money you paid a servant to spread false clues to lead your father on a wild goose chase.”

“You weren’t there….”

“Your father had some suspicion about your involvement of course, but he could never prove anything. He was also afraid of losing the only living blood he had left. What would your father say if he knew the real reason why you keep dragging him to have tea in the garden?”

“You… what are you actually…”

“Anyway, enough about you. Let’s go back to this plan of yours.”

“Demon…”

“On paper, it’s a good plan actually, taking Marven and Athorius hostage. Not the most brilliant of plan of course, since I’m me and the consequence of you taking this action will make you so very dead. You even tried to capture my maid, Synnove Ciro, as well. You didn’t care if she was an elite student, one of your own, or that her father is a very powerful and important man. I doubt you would have harm her, given who her father is. But you thought the more hostages you have, the better for you to threaten me with. All you care about is improving your standing with Master Haithur and securing your place in Ouroboros. Which you had hope to accomplish by taking me down today.

*nervously “How about we’ll just back away from each other today?” It’s not too late…”

“Now, let’s go back to my friends Marven and Athorius. You saw how happy I was when I met them, how I cried like a baby when we were reunited two nights ago in the dining hall.You saw how, in a moment of weakness, I was ambushed by Master Wes’ attack and got kicked into the wall.”

“I’ll release them immediately. No harm no foul, right…”

“I will never show it again.”

“Why…”

“Why didn’t I go there straight away and rescue them if I knew about the place from the start? The answer is simple really, you’re the cause. I didn’t want to skip on this little meeting with you. Seriously, wouldn’t want to miss it for the world.”

“What do you mean…“

“You think you’ve been observing me unnoticed, like a hidden predator silently stalking its prey. Watching carefully for any weaknesses, waiting patiently for the perfect opportunity to strike. But the truth of the matter is, I’ve set my sight on you as well, for reasons I’m about to disclose in a moment. And now that you’ve hand-delivered yourself to me, with enough cause to justify my actions of tearing you apart, from the inside out, I sincerely give my thanks to the Gods for this delicious meal I’m about to partake.”

“No, stay back! I’m warning y-“

In a blink of an eye, the boy delivers a punch to the seventh year Class A student. The older student buckles forward from pain. The boy then proceeds to put him in a hold, wrapping his two legs around the seventh year Class A student’s neck as well as locking the older student’s right arm using the boy’s left hand. Both of them falls to the ground, with the boy completely restricting his bigger opponent.

“Stop squirming, I don’t want to snap anything important… not right now anyway.”

“You are dead! Both of your friends are dead! The moment you’ve touched me-“

“Yeah yeah, your friends will execute my friends. Kind of hard to do that if they’ve been knocked unconscious.”

“What!”

“In case you haven’t noticed it by now, I’ve been stalling. And now that the hostages are rescued, I can finally do this. It's a good thing too, my mouth is getting dry from all that talking.”

“Let me go!”

“Remember what I’ve told you about hostage situations? How it will only work if one side has the upper hand?”

“I said release me!”

“And the four things that were suppose to make you untouchable. Do you remember those?”

“Fuck you! I’m gonna kill yo-Owww!”

“I asked you a question. I said do you remember the four things you thought will make you invincible?”

*cries “I do! I do!”

“You see, once you take one or two factors out of the equations, everything falls apart, like a house of cards.”

*continues crying “Please… I beg you. Let me go.”

“You’ve lost your hostages, which was the only real bargaining chip you had by the way. The school won’t protect you, once they know what you’ve done. The same can be said about you father as well. And do you think Master Haithur will find you useful, you who have failed spectacularly and miserably?”

*sobbing “I promise you, I’ll be good. I swear.”

“He never did anything wrong to you.”

“Who…”

“Rolfe Primero. You have never dueled with him before. He has never offended you, talk to you, or even gave you any personal reason to hold a grudge against him.”

“What are you talking about…”

“But still you went after him. After you took over your father’s mercenary company, you used its powers and connections to discover that Rolfe had married and that his wife was pregnant.”

“Let me go, you’re hurting me...”

“When Rolfe was away, you took his wife hostage. Then you invited the various nobles who hated Rolfe, there were so many of them, to watch his fall.”

“I’ll give you anything you want…”

“You sent Rolfe a letter with a time and location. And when he arrived, you gave him a sword and told him to fall on it.”

“Do you want money? I have lots of it. It’s yours.”

“Kill yourself, you said to Rolfe. Do it and we will spare your wife and the unborn child inside her, you promised him.”

“Power! I’ll make you the most powerful man in this kingdom, no, the whole continent.”

“Funny how history tends to repeat itself only with minuscule differences. For my situation, you took my friends hostage and gave me a vial of an extreme potent poison in the parcel. No prizes for correctly guessing what you wanted me to do with it.”

“You got it wrong. It was just a harmless prank.”

“With his pregnant wife surrounded by armed and well-trained mercenaries who were under your employment and being too far away to be rescued effectively, Rolfe being Rolfe took the only way out, even though every fibre in his being screamed at him to murder you all where you stand.”

“Let me be you follower. I swear an oath of undying loyalty to you right now…”

“Despite what he said to me last night, Rolfe still cares enough not to put innocent lives in danger. He really loves his wife, and the baby inside her. Rolfe isn’t the baby’s real father by the way.”

“I will follow your every command, every word… I’ll even lick your feet if you ask me…”

“And even though the deed is done and Rolfe was dead, you still gave his wife to the nobles to be torn apart like wolves devouring a lamb.””

“That’s not me. I will never do something like that. I swear…"

“All because you wanted to improve your standings with the nobles and make them owe you one.”

“Please have mercy on me…”

“Do you remember what I said about me being merciful? Here, I’ll give you a word for word quote to refresh your memories ‘Now, I will give you a small window of opportunity, and I sincerely hope you take it’.”

“Yes! Yes! I remember!”

“I’m sorry… I lied…”

“What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t being sincere at all.”

SNAPS!

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Saw this when I logged into the website yesterday

http://postimg.org/image/ghiioil7r/

Thanks to the user Lasiefo for the review : )

And to the unknown person/moderator/unseen hand/entity who actually created the links at the bottom of the page to make it easier for users to browse the stories, you have my gratitude. I've been meaning to do it myself but I didn't know how.