**BOOM.**
The explosion erupted from Bang's right boot. The thin bandit's jaw *disintegrated*—teeth and bone fragments spraying outward in a wet arc that painted the cracked pavement red.
The body hadn't hit the ground before Bang was *moving*.
**BOOM.**
Left foot. The scarred bandit beside him flew sideways. Ribs caving inward with a sound like green wood snapping. He slammed into a rusted support beam fifteen feet away. The metal *bent*.
**BOOM.**
Right palm. Bang's newest discovery. The explosion caught the third bandit mid-lunge—a woman with a pipe raised overhead. Her chest *caved*. The pipe clattered from nerveless fingers as she tumbled backward, gasping, drowning in air that wouldn't reach her punctured lungs.
"THREE!" Bang landed. Grinning. Blood splattered across his face like war paint. His silver eyes tracked the remaining seven bandits spreading out across the abandoned factory yard.
Sable's working eye—the left one, still brown, still *functional*—cataloged positions automatically.
*Bang. Center. Forty feet away. Four bandits flanking him—two left, two right. Combat formation. Organized. Not panicking.*
*Malvric. Twenty feet right. One bandit circling him. Skinny. Twitchy. Knife in hand.*
*Two more. Approaching from my left. Brown hair. Dark jacket. Both armed. Moving toward—*
Toward Ellaya.
Sable's hand found the metal rod. Drew it. The weight felt wrong—too light for what he needed it to do. Too crude for the violence ahead.
His analytical mind tried to run scenarios: *Distance, velocity, reaction time, optimal strike zones—*
His body was already moving.
Not trained. Not graceful. Just—*forward*.
The makeshift eyepatch restricted his vision. The gauze pressed tight against his destroyed-then-healed right eye. Half his world was darkness. Depth perception was *fucked*.
The first bandit—brown hair, scarred knuckles, knife catching grey light—saw him coming. Sidestepped. *Easy*.
Sable's rod cut through empty air.
His momentum carried him forward. Too far. Off-balance.
The bandit's boot caught his ankle.
Sable went *down*. Concrete rose up to meet his shoulder. The impact drove air from his lungs in a rush that tasted like copper.
Behind him: Ellaya's small gasp. Fear. Recognition that the adult supposed to protect her was on the ground.
The bandit grinned. "You fight like *shit*."
Sable rolled. Not tactical. Just—*survival*. The knife came down where his throat had been. Scraped concrete. Threw sparks.
He scrambled backward. Boots slipping on wet pavement. His burnt arm screaming.
The second bandit—dark jacket, dead eyes—circled left. Trying to get behind Ellaya.
*No.*
Sable lunged. Swung the rod. Wild. Desperate.
Missed.
The bandit with brown hair *laughed*. "Slow. You're so fucking *slow*."
Across the yard, Bang was *dancing*.
Four bandits surrounded him—pipes, chains, improvised weapons that should have mattered. They didn't.
**BOOM.**
Bang kicked upward. The nearest bandit's sternum *shattered*. He flew ten feet straight up. Hung there for a heartbeat. Gravity remembered. He dropped. Hit concrete. Didn't move.
**BOOM.**
Spinning kick. The second bandit's head snapped sideways with a wet *crack*. Neck broken. Body collapsing like a puppet with cut strings.
The remaining two backed away. Weapons raised but hands shaking.
"RUN! To Ash! one screamed.
They ran.
Bang let them. Turned toward the center of the yard.
Towards the man they call Ash.
The scarred man stood there. Calm. Hands loose at his sides. His palms were *wrong*—covered in burn scars that spiraled up his forearms. Old injuries. Permanent. The kind that came from repeated exposure to something that shouldn't touch skin.
"You done yet?" Ash's voice was gravel. "Or you got more kicks in you?"
Bang's grin widened. Manic. Hungry.
"*So many more.*"
He charged.
**BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.**
Each kick propelling him forward. Explosive acceleration. Impossible speed.
Forty feet became twenty. Twenty became ten.
Ash's right hand came up.
Flames erupted. Not matches. Not lighter-flicker. *Flames*. Orange-red fire spiraling around his fist like a living thing. The heat was immediate—Sable felt it from thirty feet away, a wave of pressure that made his skin tighten.
Ash *threw*.
The fireball sailed forward. Baseball-sized. Trailing smoke.
Bang kicked left. Midair. The explosion redirected his trajectory. The fireball whistled past his shoulder—close enough that his shirt caught fire at the collar.
He landed. Immediately kicked again.
**BOOM.**
Closing distance.
Five feet.
Ash's *left* hand shot forward. Palm open. No fire. No weapon. Just—*push*.
The air *bent*.
Bang flew backward.
Not stumbled. *Flew*. Like invisible artillery had caught him center-mass. His body sailed twenty feet, crashed through a rusted chain-link fence, and slammed into a concrete barrier.
The impact echoed across the yard.
Sable's mind processed it through the chaos of his own fight:
*No projectile. No visible effect. Just—force. Telekinesis. Another Grace.*
*Two Graces minimum. Fire and force projection.*
*Bestowed-rank. Has to be.*
The bandit with brown hair used Sable's distraction. Charged. Knife leading.
Sable brought the rod up. Defensive. Wrong angle. His medical training screamed that his stance was *broken*—weight too far forward, elbow bent wrong, leverage nonexistent.
The knife came in low. Aiming for his gut.
He twisted. Not fast enough.
The blade caught his shoulder. Punched through fabric. Scraped bone. Pain exploded white-hot and immediate.
Sable's mouth opened. No sound came out. Just a gasp that turned into a strangled wheeze.
His *other* shoulder. The burnt arm's side. Fresh damage layered on top of barely-healed tissue.
The bandit yanked the blade free. Blood followed. Warm. Running down Sable's chest in sheets.
"One more," the bandit said. Grinning. "Then the kid."
Something in Sable's chest went *cold*.
His hand found the rod. Tightened. His fingers were slick with his own blood but he *held*.
Swung.
Not trained. Not precise. Just—*rage* wrapped in motion.
The rod caught the bandit's temple.
Not hard enough to kill. Hard enough to *hurt*.
The bandit stumbled. Blood running from the cut. His grin faltered.
Sable swung again.
This time connected with the throat. Not a clean hit—glancing, desperate—but enough to make the bandit *choke*.
He dropped to one knee. Gasping. Hands flying to his neck.
The second bandit—dark jacket, dead eyes—saw his partner down. Saw Sable swaying. Saw *opportunity*.
Charged.
Faster than expected. Knife raised. Aiming for Sable's exposed back.
"*SABLE!*" Ellaya's scream.
Sable turned. Too slow. The knife was already coming down—
Second *launched*.
The bird exploded from Sable's coat pocket. Wings beating frantically. Small body aimed directly at the bandit's face.
Talons extended. Beak open.
The bandit threw his hands up. Defensive. "*Fuck*—get it—get it *off*—"
Second pecked. Clawed. Made sounds that were half-chirp, half-shriek. Pure fury compressed into eight ounces of feathers and loyalty.
Sable didn't waste it.
Lunged forward. Rod raised.
This time aimed for the *head*.
Connected.
*Crack.*
Not the sound of impact. The sound of something *breaking* inside.
The bandit dropped. Convulsed. Eyes rolling back white. Limbs twitching in patterns that meant seizure, brain damage, death arriving fast.
Sable stood over him. Rod still raised. Breathing in ragged gasps that burned his throat.
"Haah— Fuck you."
Cold text burned across his vision:
**[REDEMPTIVE WRATH: ACTIVE]**
**[YOU HAVE SLAIN A RAPIST AND A MURDERER]**
**[SINS +200]**
**[CURRENT BALANCE: 730/10,000]**
**[THE SIN OF WRATH IS PLEASED WITH YOU]
Sable stared at the notification.
At the words.
*Rapist. Murderer.*
The convulsing stopped. The bandit's chest went still.
Sable looked at the first bandit. The one with brown hair. Still on his knees. Still choking. Still *alive*.
Their eyes met.
Sable tilted his head.
The bandit's expression shifted. From pain to *recognition*. Seeing something in Sable's face that made him understand.
A"Wait—" he gasped. "Wait wait wait—"
Sable's rod came down.
*Deliberately.*
Aimed for the skull. No hesitation. No mercy.
The metal connected with a wet *crack* that echoed across the yard.
The bandit dropped. Twitched once. Went still.
**[YOU HAVE SLAIN A MURDERER]**
**[SINS +100]**
**[CURRENT BALANCE: 830/10,000]**
Sable's hand was shaking. Blood dripping from the rod's tip onto concrete. His shoulder screaming. His vision tunneling at the edges.
But his voice came out flat. Clinical.
"Fucking Monsters," he whispered.
Second landed on his shoulder. The bird was panting. Feathers ruffled. But alive. Warm.
Ellaya stood pressed against the wall behind them. Small hands covering her mouth. Brown eyes wide.
"Sable?" Her voice was so small. "Are you—"
"I'm fine." The lie came out automatic. Practiced.
He wasn't fine.
Across the yard, Malvric was *moving*.
The skinny bandit circling him had a knife. Was grinning. Confident.
"Rich boy's gonna—"
"Where are you going to stab me?" Malvric's voice stayed pleasant. Conversational. Like discussing weather.
Malvric's pupils dilated. Flooded *red*.
The bandit's mouth opened. Words came out strangled. Compelled.
"Your—your *gut*—left side—between the—"
"Ah." Malvric's hand moved. Smooth. Practiced.
A dagger appeared. Small. Silver. Hidden in his suit jacket. The blade was thin. Perfectly balanced.
The bandit's eyes widened. "*Wait*—"
Malvric stepped *inside* his guard. The dagger drove upward. Under the ribs. Angled toward the heart.
Professional. Surgical.
The bandit gasped. A wet, bubbling sound. Blood poured over Malvric's hand—warm, viscous, staining his suit sleeve.
Malvric twisted the blade.
The bandit's legs gave out.
Malvric pulled the dagger free. Stepped back. Watched him collapse.
"For the karma," Malvric said quietly. His now Red eyes tracked the dying man with clinical detachment. "Every bit helps."
The bandit stopped moving.
Malvric cleaned his blade on the corpse's shirt. Sheathed it. Adjusted his collar.
Looked at Sable.
Smiled.
Behind the fence, Bang was *standing*.
His shirt was burning. Hair singed. Blood running from his nose. But his grin was *wider*.
"Okay!" he shouted at Ash. "That was *good*! Do it again!"
Ash's hands came up. Both glowing now. Fire spiraling around his right fist. Left hand empty but *wrong*—the air bending near his palm, reality flinching away.
"You want more?" Ash's voice was smoke and hate. "I'll give you *more*."
He *moved*.
Faster than before. Covering ground in explosive bursts that made no sound. His right hand drew back. Fire building. Growing. The flames spiraling higher until they consumed his entire forearm.
Bang raised his boot—
Ash's left hand *pushed*.
The invisible force caught Bang mid-kick. Threw him sideways. His body flew fifteen feet. Hit a rusted shipping container. The metal *dented*.
But Bang *detonated* his right palm mid-flight.
**BOOM.**
The explosion redirected his momentum. Changed his trajectory. He landed on his feet. Skidded. Caught himself.
Immediately kicked.
**BOOM.**
The blast carved a line through the air. Smoke and fire and pressure.
Ash threw his fireball.
The two projectiles met midair.
*Exploded*.
The shockwave rolled outward. Heat and light and noise. Sable felt it from forty feet away—pressure wave that made his ears ring, flash that burned afterimages into his retina.
When his vision cleared, both combatants were still standing.
Bang's clothes were smoldering. Hair standing straight up. Grinning like a *maniac*.
Ash's right hand was *charred*. Black. The skin blistering, peeling away in sheets. Smoke rising from exposed muscle.
He didn't flinch.
Didn't scream.
Just flexed his fingers. Testing. The burned tissue cracked. Fresh blood welled.
"Pain don't mean shit to me," Ash said.
His left hand came up again. Aimed at Bang.
*Pushed*.
Bang flew backward. Twenty feet. Hit concrete. Rolled. Came up running.
Charged directly at Ash.
**BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.**
Each kick propelling him forward. Each explosion covering impossible distance.
Ash threw fire. Once. Twice. Three times.
Bang dodged. Midair. Using explosions to *redirect* his body. Threading between projectiles like he'd been born doing this.
Ten feet.
Five.
Ash's left hand shot forward. Point-blank range. Maximum force.
*Pushed*.
But Bang *detonated* his chest.
**BOOM.**
The explosion erupted from his sternum. Center-mass. The force countered Ash's projection. Canceled it. Made space fold wrong between them.
Bang's boot caught Ash's jaw.
**BOOM.**
The explosion at point of contact was *deafening*.
Ash flew backward. Thirty feet. Crashed through a chain-link fence. Hit concrete. Bounced. Slid.
Didn't get up.
Bang landed. Swayed. His entire body was smoking. Clothes burned away in places. Skin red. Blistered.
He was still grinning.
"*FOUR!*"
Malvric was already moving.
Toward the three bandits Bang had injured earlier. The ones still breathing. Still *alive*.
The first one—broken ribs, gasping—looked up as Malvric approached.
"Please—" he wheezed. "Please I didn't—"
Malvric's dagger drove down. Through the throat. Severing carotid and windpipe in one motion.
The man's eyes went wide. Blood sprayed. He choked. Convulsed.
Died.
Malvric moved to the second. The woman with the caved chest. Still gasping. Drowning in her own blood.
"Where does it hurt most?" His voice stayed pleasant.
His pupils dilated. Red.
"*Everywhere*—" The word came out strangled. "—*chest*—can't—"
"I understand."
The dagger found her heart.
She went still.
The third bandit—the one with the broken neck, paralyzed from the shoulders down—just *stared* as Malvric approached.
Couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Just—*watched*.
Malvric knelt beside him. "This is for my karma. I hope you understand."
The dagger fell.
Malvric stood. Cleaned his blade again. Sheathed it.
Turned toward Sable.
His black eyes caught the light. The smile was polite. Empty.
"Three hundred sins," he said. "Not bad for five minutes of work."
Sable stared at him.
At the casual efficiency. The complete absence of hesitation. The way Malvric had killed three helpless people and felt *nothing*.
Or worse—felt *satisfaction*.
"You're farming karma," Sable said. His voice came out flat.
"Efficiently." Malvric adjusted his collar. The motion was precise. Practiced. Like he'd done this before. "I need ten thousand to reach Bestowed. Every kill helps." He paused. "You understand, surely. You did the same thing."
Sable's jaw tightened.
*I did. One hundred thirty-eight loops. Three men. Over and over. Until I reached the threshold.*
*I'm exactly like him.*
*Except—*
*No.*
*I killed to save Ellaya. To stop them from hurting her. It wasn't—*
The rationalization died in his throat.
Because the notification had appeared after each loop. The karma accumulating. The system rewarding violence regardless of reason.
*Intent doesn't matter. Only action.*
Across the yard, movement.
Ash was *standing*.
His jaw hung wrong—dislocated, broken, held together by tissue that shouldn't be functional. Blood poured from his mouth in sheets. His right hand was charred black. Useless.
But he was *standing*.
And as Sable watched, the jaw started *moving*. Shifting. The bone fragments grinding. Realigning. Healing.
*Slow*. Visible. But *healing*.
"Fuck," Bang breathed. "He's got regeneration too."
Ash spat blood. The glob hit concrete. Steamed slightly.
His eyes found Bang. Then Malvric. Then Sable.
Locked on Sable.
"You," Ash said. The word came out slurred. Wrong. His jaw wasn't fully healed yet. "You killed my *people*."
Sable's hand tightened on the rod. His shoulder was bleeding. His burnt arm barely functional. His vision still restricted by the eyepatch.
*Can't fight him. Can't—*
Ash took a step forward.
Then another.
His left hand came up. Ready. The air around his palm already bending.
"Your turn," Ash said.
Sable's other hand moved to the eyepatch. Grabbed it. *Yanked*.
The gauze tore free. Blood and vitreous humor still crusting the fabric.
His right eye opened.
Vision flooded back. Complete. Stereoscopic. Depth perception snapping online.
The world resolved into focus.
And the two approaching bandits—the ones Sable had thought were far away, distance wrong because of one-eyed vision—were *right there*.
Three feet away.
Already lunging.
Knives extended.
Sable threw himself sideways. Not tactical. Just—*panic*. Pure animal response.
The first knife whistled past his throat. Missed by inches.
The second caught his coat. Tore fabric. The blade scraped across his ribs but didn't penetrate.
He hit the ground. Rolled. Came up with the rod raised.
Both bandits saw his face fully for the first time.
Saw the mismatched eyes. Brown left. Blue right.
Saw the *red* sclera surrounding the blue. The blood vessels burst and permanent. The iris floating in crimson like something drowning.
They stopped.
"What the *fuck*—" the first one breathed.
"His *eyes*—"
"He looks like a fucking devil—"
Sable's analytical mind cataloged their fear.
His brown eye tracked their postures—tensed, ready to run.
His blue eye calculated—*optimal strike zones, reaction time windows, probability of success.*
The two bandits looked at each other.
Made a decision.
Turned.
*Ran*.
Not toward Sable. *Away*.
Full sprint. Abandoning the fight. Abandoning Ash.
Saving themselves.
Sable watched them go.
Didn't pursue.
His legs wouldn't hold him for a chase. His shoulder was still bleeding. His entire body was *screaming*.
Ellaya appeared beside him. Small hand finding his. Second on her shoulder.
"They ran," she whispered.
"Yeah."
"Because of your eyes."
"Yeah."
She looked up at him. Her brown eyes reflecting his mismatched ones.
"You look scary," she said quietly. "But also—" She paused. Searching for words. "—also like you."
Something in Sable's chest *cracked*.
He squeezed her hand gently.
Across the yard, Ash was *screaming*.
Not pain. *Rage*.
His entire body *ignited*.
Not just his hands. *Everything*. Flames spiraling up his arms, across his chest, consuming cloth and skin in a conflagration that made the air shimmer.
"YOU KILLED THEM!" Fire poured from his mouth with each word. "YOU KILLED MY *PEOPLE*!"
He charged Bang.
Not tactical. Not controlled. Pure fury made manifest.
Bang raised his boot—
Ash's left hand *pushed*.
The force caught Bang mid-kick. Threw him sideways.
But Bang *detonated* both palms simultaneously.
**BOOM. BOOM.**
Twin explosions. Left and right. The blasts caught him mid-flight. Redirected. Spun him. He landed on his feet.
Immediately kicked.
**BOOM.**
Ash took the explosion full-force to his burning chest. Flew backward. Hit concrete. Rolled.
Stood.
*Still burning.*
His skin was charring. Blistering. Peeling away in sheets that revealed muscle and bone underneath.
But he was *smiling*.
Sable's blue eye tracked the damage.
*Third-degree burns. Full-body. Muscle exposure. Should be in shock. Should be—*
*Pain tolerance. Another Grace. That's four total.*
*Fire emission. Force projection. Regeneration. Pain tolerance.*
*Four Graces.*
*Grace hunter. Confirmed. He's been killing for years.*
His analytical mind kept calculating:
*Bang's exhausted. Clothes burned. Running on fumes. Malvric's a support fighter—won't engage directly. I'm barely standing.*
*We can't win.*
Ash's hands came up. Both glowing. Fire spiraling around his right fist—the charred one, skin peeling but still *functional*. Force building around his left.
He looked at Bang. At Malvric. At Sable and Ellaya.
"Your turn," Ash said.
And *moved*—
-----
-----
**CURRENT SIN COUNT: 830/10,000**