I wish I could say that was the end of it. We lived peacefully, and spent the rest of our days without any trouble. But trouble had a way of finding me, no matter how hard I tried to hide from it.

I had begun to spend much and much less time at the castle. I found a separate job at the brothel. I just had to be there, in case trouble broke out. It wasn’t good pay, but I didn’t have to do much. I had a fortune from which I could withdraw anyways, so none of it mattered.

In fact, I spent so much time at the brothel that everyone there was no longer uncertain about approaching me. Everyday I would go, they would just wave and tell me where Kasumi was. And everyday, Kasumi would be expecting me.

I was… happy. I never even considered such a thing would happen to me, but there it was. A time where I had freed myself from my obligations I believe I owed the world. A time where I was running away from my destiny, not even looking back on the things that I could have done. A time where I was no longer concerned about what more I could have done, but satisfied with the things I had accomplished. At least a part of me was.

The world no longer needed me anymore, I thought. It didn’t need Magnus the Malicious, nor did the world need the Vanguard of Visereal.

Or so I thought, until Delilah summoned me to the castles for a very important matter.

The illegal slave trade that they were investigating had been fully uncovered. The information that she received had been confirmed to be true, and I was requested to intercept and bring a stop to it, once and for all.

“Can’t you ask Ivan, or anyone else, really?” I tried to say no.

“Ivan’s in the North, dealing with the rebellion. Eileen’s been sent on a covert mission, to the Western cities, and Lucy has gotten herself in some trouble. Again,” she made a point to emphasize again. I thought about it. Just one last mission. Just one more fight, and then no more. Perhaps I was needed for one last job.

So on the day of the assault I told Kasumi that I wouldn’t be seeing her until night came. I lined the soldiers up at the area, looking over each and every one of them. Nearly all of them were older than me, and none of them had ever seen me before, only heard of me. Except for one soldier that knew me from the war, who had lost a couple of fingers on his left hand. He stood straight as I arrived, saluting me.

“At ease,” I commanded.

“Psst.” One of them whispered. “Who’s that.”

“That’s Lord Magnus you fucking dolt,” the verteran snickered, and almost immediately everyone stood up straight.

“We’re going in now. If you can’t keep up, I’m leaving you behind,” I shouted. I preferred to work alone, I was the vanguard after all. But I wasn’t here to kill anyone, not this time. I was just here to keep operations running.

Before they could protest, black matter crawled up my skin, covering me in reinforced, hazy armor. And it was at that moment that they knew who I was. The White Rider, who rode into war enveloped in darkness, and returned cloaked in light. We barged through the alleyway, towards the mansion where we suspected that the slave trade was being hosted. Bystanders got out of the way as we marched through the upper districts where the wealthy lived, and we arrived upon the destination. Without hesitation I broke the steel gates with my bare hands, sending them flying across the well maintained garden. The workers there turned to us in surprise, shouting and asking what we were doing. I left the soldiers to deal with them, going on ahead. If the information we received was correct then there was a secret passageway in the library.

It was large, empty and full of books that I had never even heard of. Dust gathered atop every single one, so they hadn’t been touched for a while. All except one case, that seemed to have but a few specks. I went near, trying to look for signs of a passage. Upon getting closer I could hear the very slight sound of wind slipping through a tiny corridor, and I broke the shelf apart, sending it open. I focused my senses, and I began to smell blood. A lot of blood. More than I should have.

The soldiers poured into the room, chasing after me and waited for me to give my next set of orders.

“Sir?” they began to get back into formation, lining up behind me.

I could sense plenty of people down there. We had suspected dozens of people being captured, but I could sense hundreds down here.

“Follow me,” the black armor around me seemed to wane a little bit, along with my confidence. “A small group stayed back to watch our backs.”

We threaded lightly, trying not to make too much sound. The secret passage was well lit, and showed signs of frequent use. As we went in deeper, the sounds of voices seem to go up in correlation.

An opening, up ahead. One that led to a very large room, and I could hear voices up ahead. Hundreds of them. They were cheering, and as I slowly entered the large underground area, I began to realize exactly where I was.

Dozens of wealthy people in extravagant people were on higher balconies, that seemed to be made out of poor marble. Hundreds sat down on wooden bleachers below, cheering at the sight of blood being spilled in the open area below. And down in the dark pits were people. Humans. Beast-people. Animals. All thrown together in the same area, all in the name of one thing, and one thing only.

Entertainment.

It was an underground arena where people were killed for fun.

Nobody even noticed us as we came in. The soldiers behind me came to a sudden halt, but made no sound. The verteran that recognized me slowly walked up behind me.

“What do we do, sir?” he looked around, not surprised at all by what he had seen.

But I had already gone back into the depths of my head. It was the same thing as I had seen in Avalon. The same arena in which I had been thrown into, abandoned by the world to die. Where blood was spilt for coin, and money changed hands. My stomach lurched, and I wanted to puke.

Nothing had changed. The realization that I hadn’t cracked a dent into this world, even though I had slaughtered a quarter of a kingdom to teach them the consequences of crossing me. And they still hadn’t learned.

“You’re back.”

Asura spoke for the first time in over a year.

“This is where you belong.”

“What do you want?” I shouted inside of my head.

“Nothing. I’m merely here to observe.”

“Do you think this is a game?”

“Life is a game, Magnus. You’ve merely been playing your cards right.”

“This is not a joke. Everything I’ve done-”

“Changes nothing,” I saw an illusion of him taking a seat next to me, his hands locked together.

I went silent.

“This is the fate you doomed yourself to when you chose to protect your fellow humans, instead of abandoning them. You should have left them.”

“I chose to make the world a better place-”

“No, you didn’t,” he whispered. Somehow he was even more ominous when he was quiet. “You found a woman. Someone you cared for. You chose to have a weakness,” he leaned into my ear. “You let victory defeat you. And now what you have here… are your consequences.”

And that’s where it began. The knowledge that I could have done something to prevent all this. That I could have done more. That I had chosen to do nothing, but watch.

With it, the rage. The powerlessness. The same thing that burned inside of me all those years ago, pushing me to fight and to draw blood, reminding the world of men that monsters existed.

And awakened the beast inside of us all… that turned good men.

Cruel.

My hands began to shake. My arms trembled like branches in a hurricane, and the magic returned to my fingers. Small strands of black strings dripped from me, enveloping in more and more layers. I stepped back into the darkness, nearly tripping over. It was different this time. Whenever I fought, I realized that whenever I turned into the white form of me, I was always focused on doing whatever I could for the betterment of the world. Selflessness was what allowed me to truly be at the peak of my strength.

So what did the black represent?

At the edge of madness, I stood and looked into the pit. There was something down there, something even more powerful than Asura. And I feared what waited from me below, in the depths where the light refused to go. Whenever I felt like I was losing it, I fought back, trying to maintain control. But every time I went there, the tip of the cliff would fall off, and I would be slightly closer to the bottom. As power slowly chipped away at my sanity.

I turned into a flash, dashing through the shoddy staircase that fell apart with my steps. Black matter twisted from the ground, following me as I dropped into the arena, standing in front of a legless young boy. A lion bit my arm as I protected her, growling as its teeth dug into my armor. I stared deep into its shiny black eyes, and suddenly it backed off. Like it dog, it whimpered and let go of me, retreating to a dark corner where I paid no mind to it. The people in the arena had begun to realize what had happened. My soldiers surrounded the area, preventing anyone from leaving.

The animals in the arena retreated, fearing the aura of terror that I exuded. It became hazy, like poisonous gas had just been released into the area. I looked at the young boy who began to crawl away from me. I grabbed him, raising him up and went to the cage where there were even more prisoners. I broke the lock, opening the cage and threw the kid inside.

“Stay. Inside.” I commanded. But at that moment I was more worried about punishing the guilty than protecting the innocent.

I turned into a blur, crawling up the walls and I began killing every single man and woman up on the seats. Head rolled, dismembered limbs flew and organs were crushed as I dashed from one area to another. This was who I was. The myth, the legend. The man that had become to be known as the Vanguard of Visereal. The blood sunk into my armor, tainting it a bright red. The rest of the blood began to drip downwards, towards the pit where the prisoners were. Nothing could stop me now. I hadn’t felt this strong and terrible in months. Lives were reaped like wheat, and I butchered my way from one end of the arena to another, ricocheting like a bullet and leaving nothing but death in its wake.

People ran, or at least they tried. Whoever tried to run up the stairs where my platoon had them surrounded would first find themselves without their legs. Then as they could do nothing but use their arms to crawl, their fingers would magically fall off before they were left to bleed out. Many would give up, and I would take their limbs as they dropped onto their knees, begging for mercy.

It didn’t matter who they were. It didn’t matter to me who had orchestrated this whole thing, why they were there. It didn’t even matter if this was the first time they had been to this place. To me, they were all human. And they were all humans that were guilty of the same crime as me - ignoring the value and sanctity of human life.

To the very end, I was a hypocrite.

And so when I was done with them and their throats became unable to produce sound, it all settled down into silence. The blood kept flooding, all the way down to the pit where so much blood had gathered that even as it sieved through the tiny sewer grates, I was still knee deep in it. I fully broke the cage doors, allowing them to leave. But they remained inside, more afraid of me than they ever were of their captors. And it pained me. Before, I would have moved on. I would have told myself that I had done the right thing, and that even if they would hate me for it, that I did it for them. But now a new thought had taken residence in my head.

If Kasumi saw me like this… what would she say?

So I went over to the set of doors that I only saw now. I smashed them open, blood flooding the room that I had just exposed. More and more cages lined the area, and before I could look at the people inside, I simply smashed the locks on the doors. I watched as they opened the doors, unsure of whether I was friend or foe before I disappeared, hoping that they would never have the misfortune of having to need me again.

I went up the bleachers, where the veteran had been watching. He was paralyzed, his arms shaking. Even after all this time.

“My lord,” he bowed his head, I could sense fear from him, even though he had no reason to be afraid of me.

More than ever, I saw what I had become.

“Clean up this mess,” I told him gently.

“Yes sir,” he began shouting, and just as swift as I had arrived, I left the area, alone. The blood on my armor faded with it, and I became myself again.

“You chose this for yourself.”

“SHUT UP!” I roared, slamming the wall of the stone passage, turning pieces of the wall into dust. I kept screaming, kicking like a child throwing a tantrum. Why had I returned to this cursed place? Why had I returned to the front lines willingly? It was a path of pain, it was the path that I thought I had been put on. The path that I had forced myself to endure, so that no one else had to.

“You’re cursed to do this forever. To fight for your brethren, to be blamed for their misfortune, to live in a cycle of perpetual pain and death. That is your destiny. Your fight… is eternal.”

I shouted and screamed at the darkness.

“SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP,” I shouted as I left the tunnel, entering through the mansion that we entered from. The soldiers that stayed had apprehended the workers. I left without giving them a command. I ran straight to my house, not even reporting to Delilah how the bust had gone. My clothes smelled of blood, so the moment I got back I changed and immediately burned what I had just been wearing. Delilah sent me food and drinks often. She didn’t trust me to keep myself supplied with resources, so she was insistent. I cracked open several bottles of wine, forcefully chugging them. I had a pounding headache, and my heart was throbbing. I tried to drown my sorrows, to push Asura out of my head.

Hours must have passed as I laid there, dead inside. I stared at the walls, the ceilings, and the books. I picked up one to read them, but my hands were shaking.

Then someone knocked on the door.

I didn’t check who it was. There was only one person that knew that I lived here, something that I didn’t even tell Kasumi. I didn’t want her to come finding me, in case something had happened.

“I know you’re in there!” Delilah shouted. She had come here personally. Knowing her if she wanted to force her way in, her assassins could just kick the door down.

The least I could do was turn her away.

So I walked up to the door, not opening it. I leaned my back onto the door, the wooden door creaking lightly as I did.

“The soldiers said you ran away after killing everyone. What the hell happened in there?” she asked. She wasn’t trying to force me to answer.

“I can’t do it,” I said softly, just loud enough for her to hear.

“Why now?”

“I used to think that what I was doing was right. That it was all so that the future could change. But people don’t change. They didn’t... that’s why they were kidnapping people. I didn't… that’s why I chose to kill them all. People don’t change. Whatever I do, we’re doomed to repeat our mistakes, our sins. All those people that I’ve killed… I killed for nothing.”

She stood there silently. “So… what now then, are you just going to give up?”

“I don’t know… I don’t know... I don’t know what to do.”

“There must be something I can do for you. I’ve known you for so long, let me in. You can talk to me.”

I slid down, sitting down on the floor.

“No you can't,” I answered bitterly. There was a short pause before I could hear footsteps leading away from the door.

What have I done? I just turned away one of the few people that cared for me.

“You’re destined to be alone.”

I tried to shut Asura out of my head, but it didn’t work. No matter how hard I tried the soft tones of his voice seemed to crawl through the cracks. Inaudible, but I knew what he was saying. And it was enough to drive me crazy.

“Just give in. Just let me take over. Rest now. Let me take the reins.”

I dashed over to the pantry, grabbing more bottles of wine. I drank more and more until I began to feel extremely nauseous. No matter how much I drank, I would not pass out. My body would get rid of the toxins before I could feel a thing.

Time seemed to pass on much faster. I was afraid. I was different. I wasn’t normal.

When I returned from the war, I was broken. A shell of a man, without a soul. I spent everyday wondering what to do next, but it was never something I wanted to do. And then Kasumi forced herself through into my life. She put me on my feet and told me that I was doing everything wrong. That what I was doing wasn’t living. Sometimes she was happy, and welcomed me. Sometimes she was upset, and turned away from me when I entered her room. It all depended on her mood, but I didn’t mind. I had started to tune into her tempo, even if it was far different from my own. I choked, I coughed. I sat down on the floor, torn apart by what I had just done. I dipped a single finger back into my past, and now I was being drowned in it. It was funny.

When I slaughtered a quarter of the kingdom I hadn’t felt anything. But now I was being torn over killing a few hundred people. How the times had changed. Asura was right. I had been pulled down by peace, and I was weaker than I ever was. The idea of taking a life didn’t so easy anymore.

My thoughts were interrupted by the opening of a window. I looked up, my instincts picking up and preparing to defend myself. A black sword appeared in my hand, and I raised it up at the sound.

A fox sat on the windowsill. It was pure white, large and just stood there with its gleaming black eyes, staring at me. It walked on all fours towards me, before it began to shapeshift into a humanoid figure. As the fur disappeared and string-like mana protruded from its flesh, it turned into the woman I knew as Kasumi, in all her splendour. She was in a light night gown, the one she always wore after she showed. She smelled like strawberries, like she always did. Unmistakable even among the scent of wine, proving that it wasn’t just a delusion of mine. She was right in front of me, flesh and bones.

I gazed up, uncertain of what to say or do.

She came towards me slowly, sitting down next to me.

“So this is where you live,” she commented. “It’s not as messy as I thought it would be.”

I remained silent.

“Delilah came to me. She told me that there was something wrong with you, and that she wanted me to come see you. Said that she would give me anything that I wanted, that I just had to name my price. I’ve never seen someone so desperate before.”

That was highly uncharacteristic of Delilah. She would never act in a way that undermined her power.

“So I asked her for your address. And now I’m here.”

“Get out,” I hissed. “Leave.”

“Someone like her would never do something like that if it weren’t for someone important. She has feelings for you, you know that? She cares for you.”

I didn’t understand what she was talking about.

“She told me what happened. You took a step back into your past, and filled the shoes of the person you once were.”

I went back to being silent.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I avoided her eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Look at me.”

I kept staring at the wall.

“Look at me,” she grabbed my hand. I felt a strange drowsiness, like I was falling asleep. It was like the first time I met her, where she had put me into a trance. The world around me blended and twisted, and suddenly the two of us weren’t in my room anymore. I was standing in a small house, where a young woman had a dagger in her hand, pointed at a little boy’s throat. In front of the two of them was a man and a woman, both of whom were tied up. Probably the child’s parents.

“You took everything from me,” the young woman whispered. “Do you remember?”

That voice… it was Kasumi’s.

The man shook his head frantically, before the child’s throat was slit before him, and that scenery faded out of existence.

Then I realized that Kasumi was right next to me, holding my hand. She seemed to look away as the world twisted into a different scene this time. Now, I saw the younger version of Kasumi in a bar, alone in a corner. She looked outside as the rain drizzled on the window next to her. The windows and doors were suddenly bolted shut, and locked.

“Look who we have here,” a man came out of the corner. “A cute, lost girl,” he went over to grab the young girl. Immediately, his hand was set on fire and he began screaming before she leapt on him, turning into a fox. Blue flames gave birth to a unyielding cold that sucked the life out of everyone in the room. A handful of men laid on the ground, writing in pain as all warmth left their body, and they died a slow, suffocating death. The young Kasumi went down a set of stars, exposing a basement full of tied up women and children.

The scenery changed once more, and now she was at a farm. She was heavily injured, limping as blood leaked from her leg. She had been running for a while, but she must have lost her pursuers. Arriving at a barn, she turned into a half-fox, her white fur soaking dry and turning gray under the rain. As she lost consciousness, a farmer walked into the image, seeing her on the ground. To my surprise, he picked her up, taking her inside and covering her up.

“My first love,” Kasumi whispered next to me.

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know,” the scenery changed to one where they shared a moonlit dinner, but shortly after she left. “I left him.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t understand me. He didn’t understand my way of life, or the things I had done. I knew that if he ever found out what kind of person I truly was, he wouldn’t have loved me back.”

Everything faded and I was taken out of the illusion, back to the real world. I understood Kasumi a little bit better now. What kind of person she used to be. It was cold, dark and lonely. Everything she did I understood, and everything she felt I had felt before. Like taking a walk down memory lane.

“Nothing’s different,” she said somberly. “It’ll be the same.”

I remained silent.

“No matter what I do. No matter what you do, history is doomed to repeat itself. With or without our existence, as long as humans exist, nothing will ever change.”

“No… I can change things. With the powers I have, I can-”

“Do nothing,” Kasumi interrupted. “You can kill criminals, punish those that have committed unspeakable atrocities of humans, but you will never change their incorrigible nature. Never.”

“Then what do you suggest I do?” I sounded defeated.

“Give up,” she said it so casually. “You don’t owe these people anything. You’ve done enough for the world, tried your hardest to change it. And the world refuses to be changed. The world looked like it needed you once… and it still might. But you have no obligation to answer its call. You have no obligation to sacrifice your life for its survival.”

“I can’t,” I didn’t want to give up on everything I had done. “Not when I can do so much more.”

“You can,” Kasumi squeezed my hand. “Look at me.”

And so I did. Her face seemed to disappear in the darkness. I could see her perfectly, every edge of her iris and every scar that lined her back from all those years ago, scars that she wasn’t scared of hiding. I had been with her for so long, but now she seemed to appear in a different light than before. A certain brightness that didn’t exist before.

“Humans are capable of kindness beyond angels, but we commit sins that put even the devil to shame.” I could feel her breath on her face. “You don’t have to fight for them. Your battle can be over, if you choose it to be that way. Let the cycle continue, abandon it like I did. Don’t let the burdens of the world drag you down, free yourself from it. Live life for yourself… you’ve given them everything you can.”

How was I supposed to do that? How was I to abandon all the ideals that I had preserved for all these years? To be so selfish that I would abandon the right thing so that I could be happy?

Deep down, I thought that it would be wrong for me to make that choice.

Then I looked up. Kasumi’s face was close.

“Magnus,” she whispered. So soft, I could feel the air brush against my nose. And perhaps that was what began it all. A final confirmation of what I wanted. Not what I believed was right for the world, but my desires laid bare, my selfishness for her to see.

Her lips pressed against mine and she began to undress, her hand still holding mine. I had no idea what I was doing. I tore off my shirt, discarding it onto the floor besides. We both stood up at the same time, and I pushed her onto my bed. For a moment I was scared to continue. I was shaken for a moment, before Kasumi’s hands wrapped around my cheeks, pressing it gently.

“It’s fine,” she smiled. “You can go on.”

It was warm. Comforting. Awkward.

It was silent except for the occasional moaning and whispering. Of course, I had no idea what I was doing. But she didn’t seem to mind. She bit my ear, her nails scratching my back. I didn’t mind. All the pain was offset by the pleasure.

I didn’t sleep alone that night. I had her by my side, lulling me to sleep gently. In my time of need she had chosen to be there for me, forcing her way to my side. And with that I came to believe that the life I had before was no longer the one for me.

Even though I knew that it was wrong, I had made a choice. A choice born of selfish cowardice, the type that I would have been unwilling to make before. But I was a changed man. Now I had something to lose.

And as I held Kasumi in my arms, I knew that even if the choice I had made was immoral, it didn’t matter. I was by her side, and she was by mine.

“Did I ever tell you about my favorite book?” she asked suddenly.

“No…” I never recalled such a recommendation. “I don’t think so.”

“It’s a story about a vampire who falls in love with a blind woman. Of course, they can’t be together. They’re from different worlds, but they fall for each other.”

“How unfortunate.”

“They end up together at the very end. Although not without a price,” she didn’t sound very happy about it.

“How so?”

“He cures himself of his vampirism to live with her. Although things don’t turn out as he wanted… you should give it a read. You might learn a thing or two from it.”

“What’s it called?”

“Death of a Sun.”

I would remember that name. I liked her taste in books, although it was very different from mine. They were layered, and often unpredictable.

My visions slowly faded, and we fell asleep holding each other in our arms. There were no nightmares that night, not even of the atrocity I committed that day.

Asura’s voice was completely blocked out of my head.

It was peaceful.

Tranquil.

Unlike before, where I felt anchored to my past, I was unable to truly let go of the things I had done.

Now I was unshackled from my past.

No longer bound by the chains of my sins.

Free to live a life of my own choosing.

I chose to be selfish.

I’d given up on the world once, and that’s why I walked the path that I did. Now I gave the world another chance, but I would live it differently.

I chose Kasumi.