Sweet reckoning.

Watson had been completely clueless to the corruption of the MCR. Even ignoring the irony of the protectors of the law, blatantly breaking it, it still didn’t make sense to her. MCR officials made good money, especially as they were considered a branch of the military. Surely human greed had some sort of limit or bottleneck?

The papers that she had brought into the top brass in London were not able to ignore the implications. After all, she had made sure to make the information public knowledge before bringing it to their attention just in case.

Although she was sure that these people had nothing to do with it, there were too busy and made too much money to care about that sort of thing.

Once the top brass got involved it was all over. All the top officers were involved, Watson received another promotion and was in charge of leading the cleanse in Bath, making her an incredibly busy woman. At least she had completely outranked Spencer, so no longer needed to listen to his stuttering. She knew he couldn’t help it, it just clashes majorly with her personality. She’d never snapped at him for it, and actually had a good opinion of him, the fact that he’d made it that far up the ladder with such an obvious disadvantage was impressive.

While the investigation was going well, there was no way you could uncover an entire network of corruption in a matter of days.

She was also slightly miffed by the fact that one of the biggest breakthroughs in her career was solely thanks to the very criminal she had been chasing for the last few weeks.

Whilst in Bath she made sure to catch up with Marianne every now and then, the poor girl was probably quite lonely and they even opened Beau’s shop for business every now and then, of course, they were not able to replace the stock so it was destined for empty shelves.

Marianne had pretty gone back to the usual routine, excluding the occasional rendezvous with Watson. After learning the basics of magic items, she tried her hand at some simple items, however, without proper teaching, it was almost impossible to improve.

Sheila meanwhile, had her own things to worry about. After sending her umpteenth letter to Beau’s parents to see how they were doing she sighed and joined her husband for a relaxing evening with some wine. Considering she treated Beau like her own child, she couldn’t help but be infinitely worried about him.

While everything in Bath was trundling along at a quite mundane pace, Beau had eradicated a couple of Creed strongholds and assassinated a few higher ups. Finally obtaining a promising lead on James Fillmore. He’d found the person that was there when James had gone through his initiation and given him a very painful death. The anger in him only continued to swirl as he stood outside a very good looking house on the outskirts of West London.

After knocking on the door a young lady of around mid-twenties opened the door, followed closely by an older woman that looked to be her mother. Beau’s face morphed into a grim expression but quickly went back to normal. The change in facial expression did not go unnoticed but was tactfully ignored by the two women.

“Hello, sorry to disturb you, is this the residence of James Fillmore?”

“Hello, sir.” The young lady answered. “I don’t mean to be rude, but, who’s asking?”

Beau removed his hat revealing his long blue hair in all its glory.

And placed it on his chest accompanied by a slight bow.

“My name’s Beau, I guess you could call him an acquaintance from a very long time ago.

“I see, well seeing as you know my father, please come in, he should be back very soon.”

“Thank you very much, I’m really very sorry for just barging in like this.”

“Oh no, please, it’s lovely to have a surprise visit from such a handsome young man.” The older lady interjected, she was presumably his wife, well, he’d find out soon enough.

“So how do you know my Husband?” That answers that question.

“He visited my family when I was younger, I was just in the area and felt like dropping by. Imagine my surprise being greeted by such a lovely young lady.”

“Cheeky!” The old lady exclaimed and the younger one blushed up a storm. No doubt completely unused to such blatant flirts and compliments.

Beau tried to engage them in conversation to avoid them asking a question about himself. Making sure to keep either one speaking. Using this method he actually found out quite a lot about their family.

There was no doubt, the darkness in his heart was still swelling, ever increasingly, the utter obsession to make this man feel the same misery he had.

As always the smile on the surface was close to flawless, maybe it had become his real smile, and he actually genuinely enjoyed situations like this. That would definitely make him sick, and if it was true after this was all over he was definitely going to turn himself in.

Finally, there was a sound of a key in the door and an old fat man walked through, pausing in the doorway when noticing the presence of a stranger.

There it was. This face. Beau’s eyes widened significantly. He’d put on a lot of weight and grown a mid-length beard but it was undoubtedly him. This was the man, of that there was no doubt. Beau stood up to welcome the man and shook his hand before sitting back down along with the other three people. After the mandatory greetings and useless pleasantries, James came out with it.

“Pardon me, I know you said we’ve met but this old brain is having trouble remembering you. I do apologise. What is your name boy?”

Beau winced at the form of address.

“Ah, I figured you wouldn’t recognise me, it was quite a brief meeting after all. I’m not entirely sure if you remember but my name is Beau.”

The tension was gradually rising, the Fillmore family had no idea but they felt so on edge they were about to break out in sweat.

“Beau? No, I don’t remember anyone by the name of Beau.”

“No, you wouldn’t. I think, however, you’ll recognise my last name…

Ignatius.”

After the name James visibly shook and, after a moment of disbelief quickly tried to stand up, only to find tendrils of pure mana around his arms and legs, locking him to the chair, he swung his head urgently towards his wife and child only to find them in exactly the same situation.

“Wha..?!”

“What’s this?”

The two ladies were confused and slightly scared, James on the other hand, was shaking up a storm, he looked deathly pale and had actually begun to sweat. After seeing the reaction of her husband the wife spoke up.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“What do I want?” A cold voice that was almost completely different to the one they had been having a conversation with up until now pierced the air.

“Good question, James, what do you think I want?”

James was unable to speak.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, NO! James, don’t freeze up on me, this won’t work if you don’t talk, you must talk.”

“I-I-I-I-I’m-m-m s-s-s-sorr-rry.” He cried, his head almost touching his lap and tears falling off his face drenching the fabric of the chair in between his legs.

“James, that’s no good. Please look up, I’d hate to have to do anything to your poor wife.” While he said that, the look on his face proved that actually, he had no qualms with bringing harm to his wife. James looked up and continued crying.

“No, no, no not them, let them go.”

“Oooooh, oooooh you big man James, look at you sticking up for your family, I suppose you’d prefer that I only killed you?”

After the prospect of killing was mentioned the two girls also started to tear up. The young lady, unable to hold back anymore screamed out.

“WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?”

“GREAT QUESTION! Good, JAMES, James my friend, please, won’t you answer your daughter here, why exactly am I doing this? I won’t forgive any lies, James, not if you want your daughter to have all her fingers by the time I’m finished.”

“Darling, Annette, forgive me, forgive me. I’ve done something terrible.”

“YES, terrible it was, wasn’t it James. Sorry, it must have slipped my mind, what was it again? What did you do to my family James?

This question brought shocked faces to the two lady’s faces.

“I… I kill-” Beau stabbed the man in the gut with his mana stiletto knife. James screamed then Beau healed the wound up to make sure he didn’t die.

“No, that’s no good, not yet, it’s too early for confession, one more question. James, would you like for me to do to your family, what you did to mine?”

At this point, the two ladies were able to make a reasonably accurate guess as to what their father/husband had done. They were crying more now.

“James, your daughter’s beautiful. You know, I had a sister. I’m sure she would have been beautiful as well don’t you agree?”

“NO, PLEASE, NOT ANNETTE, PLEASE, I’LL DO ANYTHING!”

Beau approached the bawling girl, she was trying her best to break free from the cuffs that held her tightly in place.

Beau’s knife hovered next to her throat and took one last look at James before looking back at the girl.

He stopped.

His blood ran cold.

This girl’s face.

What was he doing?

He remembered this face.

This was his face, 4 years ago.

Beau’s knife paused as it pierced the slightest amount on skin, drawing a minuscule drop of blood.

He immediately healed the wound.

You could see a difference in his eyes, the girl almost let out a sigh of relief, from that look that he had given her, she knew she was safe now.

James was still crying, the two ladies were completely silent.

“James”

The voice came back, this time monotonous, but not freezing cold like it had been.

“James, where’s the mark? The Creed’s mark?”

“It’s *sob* *sob* on my arm, my left arm.”

Beau rolled up the man’s sleeve, finding that cursed one winged angel on his left tricep.

“James, you killed my family, you were meant to kill me too. You understand don’t you?”

James nodded his head.

Beau raised a blade of mana and brought it crashing down.

An arm dropped off the chair causing a scream from the two ladies and an even louder one from James.

“You… you didn’t kill me?”

Beau healed the wound, leaving a stump where his arm used to be.

“James, from here on out you will renounce the Creed and all its teachings. You will remember what you did to my family every day for the rest of your life, you will also remember what I did here tonight and you will wallow in shame, guilt and self-pity so that you never have a full night sleep for as long as you live...

And you will look after your family, as they’re the only reason you’re still alive.”

James finally raised his head to look Beau dead in the eyes. “I understand, there will not be a day when I don’t think about what you’ve done here today… Thank you… Thank you.”

It is unclear why words of thanks were said. Maybe he was already feeling a lot of guilt for what he had done and felt like today was his rightful punishment. Maybe he was just happy for being allowed his life alongside his family. But Beau left the building with a humongous weight off his shoulder. There was still anger in his heart, burning his very soul, of course. It’s not that easy to get rid of. However, those eyes of Annette’s, he knew he made the right choice. Going any further than that, was just not worth it.