2 YEARS LATER
It was raining. Which is odd considering that it's just a stereotype for funerals. And yes! I'm at a funeral for someone I've come to see as a Father.
Here Rests Sly Cricket.
I chose the monument that would be his resting place. And I know that I should feel sad.
But all I am feeling...
Is pure. Unadulterated.
RAGE
And it's not at him, or the fact he died...
Its at the new place and people I absolutely hate the most now.
The bastards from the Clocktower, and by extension, the Mages Association.
They killed Sly, My father. Well father figure but father nonetheless.
And they will pay for it tenfold.
A FEW DAYS PREVIOUSLY
It was a... Special day for me. Why? Well two reasons. One, I mastered two new spells called Soul Swipe and Soul Regen, and two, I'm finally gonna admit to Sly being a father figure.
"Hey stop walking so fast! I'm gonna fucking fall off you asshole!"
Ah yes, Amanojaku. "Oh shush ass-cat" I retort with a scoff, which earned me a string of cusses and insults. Which were bad, as in poorly made.
I walk faster just to piss off the cat more. It's fun.
I enter the house and holler "Dad I'm home!" Hoping he gets the message.
It didn't work at all. "Sly." Oh there he is.
"Why did you say dad?" He says, his dart around the room.
"I'm gonna be bluntly" I said, bluntly, "I see you as my Dad."
He blinks. Once, twice, thrice... I think I broke him.
"I... Need a minute" he says, after a whole minute, ironically.
He walks out of the room and I swear I hear him shout "Yes!"
This... Puts a smile on my face.
He walks out, happy and takes a seat "Well since you consider me a... Dad. It's only fair that a father shares his dreams with his son."
This genuinely confused me, and being the inquisitive mind I am, I sit and listen.
"In Hollownest, and our neighboring kingdom Deepnest, we freely use magic and spells everywhere. And so I thought, 'Why should one world be able to do this, and not the other?' And so, I said it aloud to the last mages I fought, and soon was labled as a 'radical' and now we're here!" He finishes with a big ol' grin.
I... Found myself agreeing to what Sly said, Magecraft, while dangerous, is incredibly helpful. I could already think of all the things that magecraft can do. Like ward off intruders, better transport, better storage, better life in general.
So, I tell him "I wanna follow that dream too." With a smile,"why should WE have everything while others have less?"
He looked happier than the time he got 10 mill Yen from a rich hiker.
"Then let us plan!" He says with enthusiasm.
I follow happily, thinking this would last forever!
Little did we know, that we were being watched...
"Targets spotted. Requesting back up."
A FEW HOURS AFTER THAT...
I get shook awake by Sly, "Hide!" He whisper shouts.
I nodded and slipped into a hidden compartment in my closet, which holds the outfit and Nail I'd use against the Mages Association if they ever came here. Slipping on my mask and cloak, and grabbing my Nail(in the shape of a Rapier), and stay hidden.
I hear the sound of fighting and explosions out side.
And then a scream, I recognized it too...
"FATHER!" I shouted and Dashed out the room to find something that made my very shell boil.
On the ground, beaten and bloodied was Sly, and surrounding him were 5 mages, all from The Clocktower.
And the worst part was?
Sly. Wasn't. Moving.
Everything went still as I stared at the corpse of my mentor, my
father.
"THEY ATTACKED SIBLINGS CARETAKER!"
"NO!"
"MR. SLY!"
The siblings voices suddenly hushed as a flash entered my vision, a figure wrapped in chains appeared in my mindscape, a
mask with backward curving horns and a narrow "face" spoke to me.
"Destroy them for what they did. Brother."
And then. I
screamed.
0:05
Everything was blasted back at my scream, I pulled out my Nail, aptly named Hollowed Shade and shot forward, my body covered in void and my eyes glowed white as I shot forward, the ground cracked and blew back as I shot Dashed forward.
In my enraged state it was pathetically easy to kill these bastards.
I decapitated the first, his head and body ragdolled away in a spray of crimson as one mage shot my back, the bullet penetrated me as I whipped around and Dashed through him, it was if I became intangible, like Kamui in a way.
I spun around and did an arching slash, he blocked it, but was unprepared for the impaling I did with my hand, and proceeded to rip out his heart.
Mage number three was harder, he was fast and as able to block and parry my attacks. How sad that when I lashed out with a tendril(which I didn't know what I could do) and made his chest cave in.
Number four and five fled, a wise decision. On anyone else.
Using a void tendril I dragged her and her magus friend towards me. Number 4 and 5 started trying to do magus bullshittery but that was stopped by me blasting number 4, from what I instinctively call "Shade Blast", and finishing off number 5 with me crushing her skull.
And you wanna know something? I felt no regret or remorse killing them. Not even in the days that followed before I buried Sly.
In speaking of Sly I went to where he was laying, and tried to carry him.
"No, son" he coughed between words, blood dribbling from his mouth. "My time's up, but I wanted to give you this."
He hands me a charm, I learned what charms are from him, it was his Nailmaster's Glory charm.
"Thank you, for listening... Follow our dreams, ok?" He says as he took his final breath...
And he's gone...
BACK TO THE PRESENT
I stab his blade into the slab and walk away, apparently he had a Will, I got all of his books and business. I got lots of Yen, his house and shop now belong to me, and, through a low level magus squealing it as I killed him because he tried to kill me, I have a target on my back, they call me(in my mask) the "Masked Shade" now in the Magus community. Fun.
But my rage had yet to subside, and neither has my hatred. I
despise the Mages Association and the Clocktower.
After visiting the grave of my Father, for the last time in many years I will do this, not that I knew at the time, I talked aloud. "I will follow your dream Dad. But I will also follow my true dream... I will destroy everything the Mage Association has built, and will destroy everything in my way to do that. I will then take lead of the remnants of the MA and use them to help this world." I turn around and leave, never noticing his Spirit floating above the grave with a sad look to his face.
I would have looked back one last time, but I had other plans.
One such plan is to gather resources to join a specific war.
Or to be much, much more blunt...
A
Grail War.