By Zephyria 
In the blink of an eye, the swords clashed over a dozen times. It was an attack solely aimed at the vitals, with the intent to kill the opponent.
Having fed him blood, I had bought Aska enough time to recover. With such a noisy battle commencing, he would naturally avoid the fray.
“If you kill me, you won’t be able to live unscathed either.”
Khalifa’s body was a wreck, the result of a long life spent indulging in drugs and alcohol. Having retired from the front lines long ago, even with Magic tools, his death was only a matter of time.
Each time he swung his sword and the sharp, congealed blood splattered, one by one, his means of protection shattered and crumbled.
Having already decided to kill him, I had to finish him off quickly before anyone arrived. Now there was no turning back, so I poured all my focus into attacking Khalifa.
“Can you kill your own flesh and blood and still live with a sane mind?”
But the foolish words that followed made me stop moving without realizing it. Taking advantage of my hesitation, Khalifa retreated far back.
I looked at Khalifa with a surprised expression, exhaled a few white breaths, and asked.
“Have you ever regretted raping and killing your children?”
“They were not my flesh and blood.”
Of course, that might really have been the case. But among them, at least a few were truly my siblings, sharing Khalifa’s blood.
If he thought they weren’t, did that mean he hadn’t killed his own flesh and blood? If I just believed it wasn’t, would that mean he hadn’t raped his children?
The childish notion didn’t even elicit a laugh.
It seemed that the only flesh and blood Khalifa cared about were Kalik and Mahir.
“Then, do I have parents?”
“Whatever you imagine, it will be a worse hell.”
“Then, is this place not hell?”
“You won’t be able to live with a sane mind.”
As he neared death, he was giving me all the worries he had never given me in his life. It seemed people were right when they said that when a person changes, it means they are about to die.
Not worth answering, I instantly closed the distance and swung my sword. After several strikes, Khalifa, having lost all his remaining means of protection, staggered greatly.
But even the arm wielding the sword had already lost sensation. Without knowing whose blood was flowing, the tip of the sword finally pierced flesh.
The strike aimed precisely at the heart missed and hit the shoulder. As I quickly pulled out the sword, droplets of blood shot upwards. Just as I was about to swing the sword again without hesitation, I heard someone behind me.
My nerves were so sharp that my body moved on its own. Without even checking who it was, I adjusted the sword’s path, but in the brief moment, the familiar figure that entered my sight made me stop abruptly.
But the sword cut off a few strands of fluttering hair and left a hairline scratch on his white cheek.
“Kyle.”
It felt as if the dark space, which had been as narrow as a dot, opened up in all directions, and light poured in. Aska approached very slowly, making every effort to ensure I was aware of his presence, and gently grabbed my wrist.
“Calm down.”
At the soothing voice, I exhaled the breath I had been holding and turned my head. Khalifa seemed to have lost consciousness, buried under the collapsed stone wall.
“At this rate, you’ll really die.”
I fixed my gaze on Aska at the voice that came again. I shook off his hand, stepped back a few paces, and said.
“Why are you still here?”
“First, calm down and do something about that sword. Aren’t you cold?”
The floor of the Training arena was so shattered that there was no room to step, and in various places, crimson blood, sculpted like swirling waves, shot high into the air and froze in place.
Even if a Wizard didn’t come and bother to read the traces of remaining Mana, everyone would know that I was the one who created this scene.
Now there were only two options.
“Kyle.”
Whether to die like this, or not.
If I were alone, I would have stayed, but I wasn’t alone. I stared at Aska, who was anxiously hovering in front of me, calling my name, and said.
“Step back.”
“Are you going to kill him?”
I didn’t answer and raised my sword, but Aska blocked my path. I couldn’t understand why he was acting as if he was trying to protect Khalifa when he had wanted to kill him so badly before.
“Wait a moment.”
“Move.”
My voice was deeply sunken and cracked.
“People are coming. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”
I couldn’t help but frown as I looked at Aska, who was speaking urgently.
“So, move. What are you doing?”
“What are you doing? What kind of son calls his father ‘you’? And are you really going to kill him?”
There was no point in arguing about that now.
“Move!”
I ended up raising my voice, but Aska didn’t even blink an eye.
Actually, that wasn’t what I wanted to say.
Why did he come outside in the middle of the night, how did he meet Khalifa, what other injuries did he have besides his ankle, did it hurt a lot, and so, does it not hurt now…?
“I told you that there are lines you have to protect in order to live like a human. Can you kill Khalifa here and live like yourself?”
“I can’t live long in this state anyway. It’s already as good as me killing him, so what’s the point of arguing about that now?”
“He’s not dead yet. Who else can you not kill if you can kill your own father? Khalifa said it too. That it would be hell.”
Was he blocking me just because of those words? Aska’s eyes were full of worry and stubbornness. Under normal circumstances, I would have been happy enough, but this was not the time.
I eventually reached out my arm to push him away, even if I had to use force. But as my extremely excited body gradually began to cool down, the pain I had forgotten rushed in.
I realized that my hand was trembling before it even touched Aska. I couldn’t tell if it was from the pain, the cold, or the raging emotions.
“First, do something about that.”
The hand frozen together with the sword’s handle had now turned almost gray. When I grabbed it with my other hand and forcibly tore it off, the skin on my palm peeled off with a tearing sound.
“Is he really a crazy bastard……”
I heard Aska spewing out curses in astonishment from afar. The sword that had left my hand disappeared like smoke before it even fell to the floor.
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Move.”
Aska, not even pretending to listen, clicked his tongue, grabbed my wrist, and examined the severely injured area. Then, he interlaced his fingers between mine, gripped them tightly, and said.
“I’d rather kill him.”
“……”
That was so unexpected that I was momentarily speechless.
“Why?”
“It’s better for me to kill him than for you to kill him anyway. He’s not really related to me.”
“No, nothing gets better. If you just end the life of Khalifa, who I half-killed, does that mean I didn’t kill him? It’s just wordplay.”
It was the same even if my future life became hell because of the guilt of killing my own flesh and blood, as Khalifa had said. If I killed him, would the world become hell, and if I stood by and watched the death, would it not be hell? No matter which choice I made, if I was the kind of person who would feel guilty in the first place, nothing would change.
“That’s right, it’s just wordplay……. What difference does it make now whether you kill him or I kill him? After all, that man is dying quickly, and he’ll soon stop breathing even if we just leave him alone. Even if he dies like that, you’ll still think you killed him.”
Aska said as if he already knew everything. Just as I was about to ask why he was doing this even though he knew, I realized that the pain in my tightly gripped hand was gradually subsiding.
“Like you said, it doesn’t change anything no matter who kills him. It just means one more accomplice.”
“Accomplice?”
“Just……. Even if we regret it later, it’s better to have two people than one.”
“……”
A faint light bloomed from my body like a shimmering haze. The pain, along with the severe injuries close to fatal, and even the minor scratches, were gradually disappearing.
“Even if it’s just two people who are just as scared and in pain, it’s still much better for me to regret it with you than for you to regret it alone, right?”
“……”
“If a day comes when the world feels like hell, let’s do volunteer work or something to atone for it together. Or just turn ourselves in and go to jail. Even if the guilt doesn’t disappear even then and we end up living in hell anyway, at least we won’t be alone.”
What kind of nonsense was this? I was so dumbfounded and absurd that I couldn’t easily open my mouth. It was as if he was saying that he would live with me in my hell that I would eventually have to face.
“Why would you?”
I asked, dumbfounded, and Aska let go of my tightly gripped hand and knelt down on the spot. Surprised by the sudden action, I was about to step back without realizing it, but Aska grabbed my ankle with great force.
And then he kissed the top of my foot.
“……”
Aska raised his head, looked at me, who was frozen, and smiled like a prankster.
“Husbands and wives are originally one in body and mind.”