"OW, OW, OW…" I groaned as I steadily raised my head from the ground, wincing from the throbbing pain that was making me see double. For a while I used one of my hands to steady my head and take a few deep breaths until my eyes could see straight. I looked at both my hands in disbelief before looking down at myself. I thought I should be dead by now, considering that explosion. The fact I was still bleeding red and the Prana inside was my own meant I was still human. But man, that was a rush!
"Well I guess this is it for me then." I turned around quickly and took in sight of Julius. And boy what a state he was in.
He was currently strewn on the ground, resting against a jutting rock that came up from our fight. His legs were completely blown off and his remaining arm looked like it was ready to fall apart any second now. His clothes was burnt off to reveal a very charred torso and scars from the fight. His face was partially burnt off from the left side, with its eye looking like an eggshell that was broken and leaking its sick fluids. The right side of his face was the only part which remained relatively intact and that eye was looking at me unsteadily.
"Now that was a fight." Julius gave a somewhat strained smirk as he wheezed heavily. It seemed he took a lot of damage internally as well to be breathing erratically. I slowly stood up and took stock of the situation around me. Outside the battle zone, the small handful of undead that survived the onslaught stood silently and staring at me with their cold eyes.
"Need not worry of them." I turned back to Julius who attempted to put himself in a better position. "They will not attack you for now, unless you do something to provoke them."
"… Thanks." I replied as I slowly stood up and dusted myself a little. Julius let out a weak chuckle at my seemingly ignorant state. "Truly, you are an unusual mage. Normally others would either be running their asses off or be overjoyed at the prospect of cutting my head by now."
"Yeah well, I have often been told that I was a total idiot for many things." I remarked as I straightened myself up. "And for your case, the fact that you did not command them" I jabbed my thumb at the undead "to come for my neck means you have something else in mind."
"That is true." Julius gave a weak nod. "At least I get to have a good fight."
"Same here." I paused before asking "This may seem like a weird question at this point, but you are not a true Dead Apostle, are you?"
"Oh?" Julius let out a sound of amusement. "Now what brought this on? Has our fights seemed that unusual to mistake me?"
"I have fought many other Dead Apostles and undead in the few years I have been with the Association and the Vatican Church. Each one of them had a very distinct 'feel' and 'smell' to them if I were to say it." I answered evenly. "Even the Wizard Marshall has the overwhelming aura around him that I associate with the strongest of Apostles. But for you, I can't detect that much from you; if anything, I would say your core is still human."
And that was definitely the case. Typical Dead Apostles I had faced would have the scent of rotting flesh coupled with another scent that distinguish them from the others, but up till this point, none smelled remotely human like Julius. It was as though he purposely kept a part of his body as a human for some odd reason.
Julius looked at me with a hint of pleasant surprise before letting out a rather energetic and remarkably human laugh that echoed in the open area. "I guess I really can't hide too much from you. You always seem to know what I am and what I will do in the end."
"That is one thing, but the other clue stem from your reasons to turn yourself into your current state. You only wish to help others with Prana deficiency and those of lesser backgrounds. Not once did you bother to use woman or children in your experiments, and you tend to deal a heavy hand to criminals or mages who dishonor your code of ethics." I paused before continuing. "But perhaps the biggest reason for your transformation was you wanting to resurrect your wife, wasn't it? She was killed by the one whom you took his life as your first victim, right?"
In that moment, the part of the face that was not damaged gained back some colour, and maybe it was the trick of the eye, but it looked like I was finally seeing the part of him that was hidden all those years behind the mask of a villain: a human soul who wished to get back that small light of happiness to illuminate the darkness it was stuck in.
"You are really unusual for a magus. You know this, yet you do not try to take advantage of it like the others, and you always seem to hold back against me." Julius gave that cursory stare I had become accustomed to. "Why do this?"
"Why huh? I don't really know why, but…" I let out a sad smile of my own as the image of a blond girl came into my mind. "A part of me can relate to your reasons, so I wanted to see if you could perhaps find yourself in time."
"And that is why you are so interesting." Julius shook his head as he let out a weak chuckle. It was clear he did not have much time left, the most I could do was to ease his pain either through words or blade. "So what will you with me?"
"Well, you are half-dead as it is, and I'll be honest. I do not trust any of those nobles back at the Association. Knowing them, if I bring you back, they would probably find some way with your abilities to make your methods look tame." I said in a rather tired and irritated tone. Truly, those fools at the Tower have absolutely zero compulsions to do any experiments on anything that could get them closer to the Akasha Records.
"Yes, that is so true." He let out another wheeze before pausing in deep thought. "I just realized, you have won this fight, so you deserve a reward of sorts."
"Don't bother." I waved my hand tiredly. "Right now, all I want for a reward is a bathtub with hot water, and maybe a warm meal after that. A warm bed would be a good bonus."
"Hahaha…" Julius let out another amused smile as he looked at me. "Well, I can't give you that, but I can perhaps give you the next best thing."
I barely had time to register when the shadows started to gather around Julius. I instinctively traced Byakuya and Kanshou again and watched his moves carefully. Was he trying to put in one last attack?!
"Relax. I'm not going to attack you." Julius remarked as he watched my moves. "I barely have enough strength as it is, and I'm not in the mood to hurt you." He then closed his eyes and took deep breaths as small tendrils sprouted from the shadow and crawled along his body, converging at the wound in his chest. Then with a loud and wet sucking sound, they started to burrow into his body.
"KUKH!" He coughed out blood as the tendrils forced their way into his body. "Wait, what are you doing to yourself?!" I took a step forward to him only to jump back as the sharp spears protrude upwards and nearly giving me another hole to breathe through.
"Apologies, but I ask that you stay back for now." Julius wheezed as he choked on more blood. "I may not be able to control my shadows as well as before, so stay away please." I shook my head as I tried to make sense of the situation. Why was he trying to kill himself?
"KUGG!" Julius doubled as the tendrils started to get more vigorous in whatever they were doing. With a loud ripping sound, they tore something out of his body.
"KKIIYYYYAYYAYAYAYAYAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Julius let out a primal roar of agony that send chills down my spine, before he braced himself against the rock and threw up more blood. Silently, he conjured up another tendril that appeared with a glass flask filled partially with a green liquid, into which the other tendrils placed the object and sealed it up tight. "Catch." With that, the tendril whipped rather lethargically and send the flask at me. I barely had the time to react, so I nearly fumbled with it when I caught it before holding it tightly.
"Butter-fingers." Julius remarked with a hint of amusement when he saw my reaction to catching it. I ignored his comment and took a closer look. What I saw took my breath away and considerably took the blood from my face. "This is…"
"Yup, my Magic Crest." Julius replied as he clutched his wounds. "My parents were along the lines of jerks when they thought of implanting into me the unused and utterly useless bits of Magic Circuits from the main one, just so they could use me as a guinea pig for adopting what they regard as the worthless magic of the family, while giving their prodigal son the best of the Magic Crest. Then when they saw how far I have advanced within a year compared to their son, they decided to chop me up and reinsert those circuits in an attempt to get the best for him."
I nodded as I recalled the information regarding the family. The Balsforth were one of the intermediate noble classes at the Clock Tower, meaning they were somewhere in the middle of the social ladder that made them a target at both ends of it. High enough for those often bullied and leeched to hate them, yet low enough for the higher ranking families to treat them with disdain. It was one of those situations that made the Balsforth take in a relatively weak magus with poor quality to at least appeal to the masses that they were a kind family, all the while giving him a crappy education and even crappier version of their spells by removing what they viewed as worthless circuits and implanting them into him.
What they did not expect was Julius being so utterly stubborn that he took said magical skills and polished them to the point that he could go against some of the higher nobles if needed. This got proven a year later when the son, who was hosting a party with some of the more distinguished groups at the Tower, decided the best way to showcase his abilities was to challenge his 'worthless' brother to a duel.
Let's just say that if he had taken less shots, he would have been in a better state of mind to last longer. Then again, it may be thanks to said shots that allowed him to take a massive beat-down by Julius who completely dominated the duel despite him using the most mundane aspects of the family works. From what I was told, it was a fight that others could not believe was won by a third-rate mage, given the level of control he had.
Thanks goodness they did not know about my involvement in the Holy Grail War.
In any case, the reactions by the parents were understandably explosive when they found out about it. The embarrassment that their pure-blood son was inferior to an adopted child with 30 low-grade circuits was only heightened when the other nobles heard about it and laughed at them. So they decided to remedy such a situation by trying to regain the implanted magic circuits and leaving him for dead.
"It was the family butler that got you away in time, wasn't it?" I asked a question to confirm a theory I had. "The story was that you killed him while getting away, but when I checked the place and the records, there were a lot of inconsistencies with them, and considering the Balsforth passion for covering their asses, I would say that the story was a load of bull."
Julius let out a weak sigh as he nodded, looking even paler than usual. "Old man Alfred was one of the small few who did not looked down on me and even encouraged me to get better at what I do. He went to get me out the secret passageway when he overheard dear mother about cutting me open. The last time I saw him, he was blocking her spells with his own body."
"After that, I spent my life back on the streets, learning all the spells that I could get from others before I could think of making a living. It was after my transformation that I returned to the Association and took on my brother, and with the help of an enforced geass, made him surrender his Magic Circuits."
"If I recall, the family did not let you do so without a fight?" I asked dryly, to which Julius gave a smirk. "They tried, but I took them all on easily. Most were left alive with broken limbs and more broken circuits, only a few dead for being total assholes. As for dear Daddy and Mummy, I decided to leave them in front of the Association's doorstep to explain why their entire home was destroyed, their wealth being distributed to the 'lesser folks' and their son left with a big gap in the chest from which I took the crest from." He let out a laugh only to choke out more blood. Time was running out, so I decided to cut to the chase.
"I see, so I am to assume this is the result?" I held up the jar for confirmation.
"This is the product of bringing together both of our crests once again, but using my circuits as the main body." He said as he took deep breaths to steady himself. "I do not mean to brag, but it is considerably better than when they first implanted them into my brother."
"Why?" I asked again for clarification. "You do realise that you still have a chance to survive if you did not rip this out of your body?"
"Honestly, no idea." He shrugged using his remaining shoulder. "But from the way I see this, you are not someone who would go and hand over something to the Association that has the potential to be abused on the masses. At the same time, you would probably use something if it has anything that could benefit others."
Well, that much was clear. But that still did not answer my question properly.
"The real reason why I am handing it to you, is the fact you are very different from the others." Julius said that as he looked at me straight in the eye. "You don't go around asking for a reward or bragging of your accomplishments. You kept helping those less fortunate even when there is no real need to do so, and you keep worrying about your opponents. That is not usual for a magus."
"And thus, I have decided to leave my Magic Crest in your care. Whether you wish to destroy it, hand it over or even keep it yourself, that decision is yours.
My only wish is that you put that to good use. Just call it a gut feeling that it might benefit you in the future." Julius let out another weak chuckle. "Man I must be getting soft at my age, I'm actually let a kid decide for me."
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Hey guys I really need you to throw some power Stones ;)
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