Sally trembled, her eyes fixed on the village… or rather, what was left of it.
Purple flames still licked the ruins. The houses were nothing but ashes and twisted structures.
The ground itself seemed blackened, as if burned from within. And above all…
The bodies.
Scattered. Twisted.
Some still frozen in postures of flight or prayer.
Children… Elderly… All… cut down.
And him.
Standing, the author of the carnage. Imposing.
Bakuzan.
The white mask with onyx horns covered his face.
He said nothing. He only watched. Calm. Too calm.
Sally staggered. She heard nothing anymore.
Her heart pounded loudly.
Her mind screamed:
"This isn't real."
"This isn't him."
But she knew. She knew.
She recognized his posture.
His way of standing.
Even behind that mask.
It was him.
Breath ragged, eyes wild.
Her words burst out in a voice broken by shock:
Sally:
You… you had no choice?
What could push you to kill more than 20,000 people?!
Bakuzan! Not twenty, but twenty thousand, damn it!
Bakuzan did not answer.
His silence weighed like an anvil.
No emotion filtered through that impassive mask.
Not a trace of regret.
No hesitation.
Just that absolute coldness.
Sally (collapsing to her knees, crying):
Did you think about your family…?
Do you think they would be proud… of what you just did?
A breath. An answer.
Sharp.
Bakuzan:
Exactly…
It's for my family… that I did this.
Sally lifted her head, stunned.
Her look was that of someone whose heart had just been shattered.
Sally:
You… You're not serious?
Bakuzan (calm, relentless):
The Swif clan attacked my mother.
They left her between life and death.
That deserved punishment.
Sally:
You did more than punish them!
You could have hunted down only those who raised their hand against her…
But you, you killed them all. All of them.
Bakuzan extended a gloved hand.
In his palm, a glowing sphere with violet reflections began to pulse, crackling.
A supernatural vibration filled the air, and immediately, a chaotic wind swept through the ruins.
In the village… the bodies of the dead twitched.
Their souls, pale and moaning, slowly detached, sucked into the sphere.
They screamed without voice, torn from the world, drawn like into a bottomless maw.
The sphere absorbed them, one by one.
Relentlessly.
Sally stepped back, hair whipped by the wind, terrified.
Sally (shouting):
What are you doing?!
Bakuzan:
Their souls will be useful to me.
She stared at him.
It was no longer him.
There was nothing behind that mask.
Just an unfathomable void.
A mechanical force… ready for anything.
Sally (voice broken by anger and fear):
Fuck, Bakuzan…
Who have you become?!
I don't recognize you anymore.
You seem… comfortable… comfortable hurting, stealing lives… sucking souls as if it's nothing…
Bakuzan continued, relentless, eyes fixed on the sphere.
Then, he spoke. Slowly. Calmly. But every word was heavy.
Bakuzan:
I have a question for you, Sally.
If one day… you had to choose between your family, those you love…
…or the entire world, full of strangers…
…strangers who one day… attack your mother.
What would you choose?
Would you protect the world?
Or your family?
The wind had calmed.
The violet sphere pulsed faintly in Bakuzan's palm, still charged with thousands of moaning souls.
Sally, breath short, slowly stood up.
She clenched her fists.
Eyes full of tears, but voice firm.
Sally:
You're asking me what I would choose?
My family or the world?
Obviously, I would choose those I love, Bakuzan.
But you know what?
I wouldn't kill 20,000 people for that!
She stepped forward.
Her words struck like slaps.
Sally:
Do you think that's how you protect your own?
By massacring innocents?
Is that the solution you found?
And now what?
You want us to understand you?
You want me to say: "You did the right thing"?!
Bakuzan remained silent.
Only a shiver in his hand revealed he was listening.
Sally (more trembling, softer):
You're better than this…
I know it.
The Bakuzan I knew would never have…
Bakuzan (cutting her off coldly):
You're talking about a Bakuzan who… never existed, Sally.
You clung to the image of a man in chains.
Chained by shame, by restraint, by the illusion that the world would eventually understand…
He slowly raised his eyes to her.
Bakuzan:
But you…
You know nothing.
She froze.
As if his words had slid into her belly like a blade.
Bakuzan:
You don't know what it's like…
To grow up watching your mother hide your family name so she won't be stoned in the public square.
You don't know what it's like to go to school and feel the looks…
Not mockery, no.
Disgust.
The kind of look that says: "You shouldn't exist."
Sally (weakly):
But… that's no reason to…
Bakuzan (louder):
The Satsujin Otoko clan was cursed by history.
But you know what?
Not because it deserved it.
Because only one version of history was allowed to survive.
A dirty story. A lie.
He clenched his fist. The sphere trembled.
Bakuzan:
No one tells that some of us fought against our own blood to stop the massacres.
No one says that our group, my grandfather, my mother, my father saved entire villages from the butchers of their own clan!
We erased those pages.
We burned them.
And instead, we stuck a label: Satsujin = monster.
Sally (softly, trying to bring him back):
So you want to become what they say you are…
You want to prove them right?
Bakuzan (low, dark voice):
They already judged me guilty.
Since I was born.
A silence. Brutal.
Sally could find no words.
Bakuzan (in a weary tone):
You think I didn't think about it?
About the alternative?
About another path?
Every night I told myself: "Be strong, be noble, prove them wrong."
And you know what?
My father died.
My mother almost died.
My sister, Salomé, was hunted like a dog.
That's the reward for our restraint.
Sally (almost pleading):
But Bakuzan…
You still had a choice.
You still had a chance to show you weren't like them!
He slowly raised his eyes to her.
His mask cold.
But his voice betrayed something… a pain, deep, rotten to the bone.
Bakuzan:
It's over, Sally.
I have chosen.
Not for glory.
Not for hate.
For justice.
Mine. The one that was stolen from me.
A long silence settled.
The wind, charged with souls, began to turn slowly again.
Sally, tears streaming, stared at this monster…
…whom she had once called friend. And sometimes even… big brother.