Chapter 264 - From The Bottom

It was rare that I ever saw my sister from then on, a few years passed as missions brushed by as did time. 

Before long, I was hailed as some sort of legend among killers; I didn't care. All I cared about was the money I made—sending it back home to my sister. 

There didn't seem to be an end to it; I continued to grow and grow in strength—soon, the tender excitement of what sat beyond the walls of the capital was replaced by a desire, a plead for something to give me a challenge. 

But it was only when I finally had time off did I realize the results of my own ignorance. 

Returning to those slums, his nose wasn't accustomed to that overwhelmingly toxic, repugnant stench—but he didn't mind. 

Wearing the trademark, sable, and crimson uniform of the Argonauts, the width of the somber slums was absent of anybody—none dared perturb one of his rank.

It was a feeling he didn't quite know how to place; a detachment from the place he was born and disdained—but a disconnect nonetheless. 

"I'm home."

Avdima spoke quietly as he reached the raggedy front door of his home. Living in the marble base of the Argonauts, the blemishes of the low-born sector stood out like a sore thumb now.

There was a hesitance that halted him as he extended his hand to that same old, shaky, rusted handle. 

Something doesn't feel right. I guess I've just been away for too long, he thought.

Subsiding his foggy mind with a sigh, the black-haired young man pulled the door open—immediately being greeted by a horrid stench. 

Even with a nose hardened by the dread of the slum's natural ghast, the deathly winds caused him to take a step back as his arm was brought over his nostrils. 

"Illya!"

Pushing past the stench that held his stomach tightly, twisting it as he stepped into the ragged cottage, Avdima called out with a fervor shown to none other. 

As his eyes swept the interior of his home, he found chairs lying on their side, drops of unmistakable, crimson liquid staining the floor—things that held his heart and lungs captive in that moment. 

"…Sis…"

She probably just hurt herself while cooking, right? He thought. 

Slowly, he lifted one foot in front of the other as his shoulders slumped—though he tried reasoning with himself, his eyes held defeat in their darkness.

Illya can be clumsy sometimes. She probably bumped into the chairs after burning herself while making supper, right? He thought. 

Lumbering forward as his head began to feel as light as a feather, as feeble as parchment being carried in the wind, he found himself in the narrow corridor of his house. 

The door sitting at the end of the hall—his sister's room—was cracked open just slightly. 

Ah, I remember now. It was when I lost her that this world became gray. 

Growing in intensity, the putrid smell grew stronger as he approached the door, placing his palm against the form wood before pushing it open slowly as it released a long-winded croak. 

The worst fears that plagued his mind didn't hold a candle to what met his eyes; there was she; the jet-black hair belonging to the older sister he revered most in this world--lifeless with skin as pale and hollow as the snow of winter. 

He fell completely still as his lips trembled. The clear prints of hands were on her neck; reddened, bruised, and bleeding--her eyes swollen and red with tears and stress--laying on the bed in nude without any life left in those eyes. 

I was never very emotional to begin with. I had no pride, no anger flowing through my blood, even sadness was a passing miracle to stimulate my dull heart. 

But when I saw her, like that--her fingernails drenched in crimson, bruises scaling her arms that she always hid under sleeves, even in the deathly heat of summer--I lost it. 

"Illya----!"

With a scream that reached into the deepest depths of his being, a rage born from his gut, Avdima unleashed that spectrum of bottled emotions into harrowing reality as his magical energy was unbound for the first time. 

All at once, the magnificent display of raw, untampered energy consumed the boundaries of the repugnant sector--the darkness swallowed the stained streets, decrepit buildings, and the people of the slums alike--all consumed by the unfettered rage of a single man. 

There wasn't a single drop of blood in the massacre that lasted all but ten seconds, but by the time Avdima settled the pinnacle of this saddened anger, he stood in a flat section of rubble--only ash, dust, and dirt existing beneath his feet. 

Not even the body of his beloved sister was exempt from the annihilation; leaving the man overtaken by emotions he'd never experienced, falling to his knees in the rain of sediment. 

Since I was an Argonaut, they didn't want to risk tarnishing the reputation of the hounds of the King--they pinned the destruction of the slums on a poor adventurer who was a country away at the time. 

If it was for you, I could do anything. I could put up with it all--the pain, the sins I commit as an Argonaut, if it was for you, Illya. 

I didn't realize that you were just the same as me though. 

The rumors were something I didn't believe, or rather--I chose not to believe them besides the signs. 

Naive executioners didn't think I'd hear them as they gossiped, "Avdima's sister sold her body to get him here". It infuriated me more than nothing else, I may have unleashed those frustrations a few times on those young, idiotic executioners--not that I regret it. 

After what happened, I was temporarily suspended from any missions until my mental health recovered--I guess they feared an explosion of emotion like that consuming my comrades. 

I didn't sit still though. 

Sitting in his personal chambers within Voyager's Keep, he stared blankly at the wall made of sable steel, looking at it for countless hours as not even the concept of hunger or thirst moved him. 

If it wasn't complete detachment, it was harm. 

Slamming his head against the metallic, unmoving wall over and over again, blood ran across his cut-open forehead, staining the reflective material he bashed his head against as well. 

Once he felt too dizzy to stand, it was his fingernails that came next--chewing on them before eventually ripping them right off altogether. 

I didn't know what to do with all of these emotions that surfaced for the first time. Harming myself felt like the only outlet for them. Part of me just wanted to feel something, anything besides the pain that lodged itself into my chest. 

The culmination of all of that bubbling, seething darkness that plagued my heart--I tried that which can't be undone. 

Holding a knife up to his throat, wielding it with bony, trembling fingers that held only blackened blood in place of nails, he ran its sharp edge across the surface of his skin with a violent tug. To his vacant, disappointed eyes, the blade snapped in half like a fragile twig against his durable skin. 

I didn't want to live; it was a resolve I wasn't quick to give up on. 

If a blade didn't work, he tried using his own magic to part his flesh, but it declined as if holding a will of its own--it avoided directly touching his skin. 

Somehow, that stuck out to me. Magic at its core is the will of its wielder--so maybe deep down, I wanted to live. Even if I chose to painfully exist in this world, my contempt didn't fade in the least. 

I knew what I saw--those handprints on her neck, the purple, black, and blue bruises on her body...I knew who did it; it took me all of that time to realize it--but it was right in front of my eyes. 

"Karsten."

The name of the man left Avdima's lips as if muttering a malediction, clenching his fists so tightly that his magical energy naturally showed its dark form around his appendages. 

It was now a hunt; the very thing he exceeded in as an Argonaut. 

In that heart deemed by empty as others, behind those eyes holding nothing in their gaze, a boundless, burning rage was born within him as he learned of the one he must hunt down. Everything was simple to him; all he needed to do was kill Karsten. 

The existence of morality, ethics, law--it all meant nothing to him. Such concepts were only suggestions in his haze of rage. 

I don't care if I get locked away for the rest of my life in some grimy cell, or get executed; I'll kill him. I'll destroy everything he has right before his eyes, Avdima thought. 

There was only one thing in this lonely world that Avdima had, the one thing that occupied his heart--and it was snuffed out like a flame.