The Time Has Come
Lightning rose.
Bolts endlessly born again from the clouds raked the dragon-man without mercy. Scales, skin, eyes, bone, muscle, the flow of blood, vessels, brain, large intestine, small intestine, liver, heart—all of it was laid bare.
Defense Impossible
Evasion Impossible
Drawing both arms in against his chest was nothing but empty ceremony, and clenching his teeth to endure the pain was nothing but pride.
In the instant a bolt strikes, the surface temperature reaches twenty-seven thousand degrees—more than four times the surface of the sun. Six thousand degrees is enough to make a world the Earth can live and breathe in; at four times that, the violence needs no explanation. Of course, that figure is only an instantaneous temperature. The actual death rate of a lightning strike sits around ten percent, and with the proper measures the chance of survival climbs sharply.
But the lightning roasting the dragon-man had not come from any ordinary working of nature. It was will, and it was authority, swung by a miracle of nature. Lightning cast through the immortal arts was not even fit to be compared, and lofty Heaven itself would not have dared attempt to reproduce it. Even if every being who commanded lightning joined as one, it would have been the same.
True lightning.
Nature's own will, given form as lightning
Permitted to a single ordinary high school student
This lightning, so near to nature, had been granted to no one else. Hundreds of millions of strands of True Lightning drove the dragon-man to the threshold of death. Life caught at his ankle however it could, but that only delayed the result. Nothing changed. If anything, it only drew out the time of pain.
"…Kh, hhk…"
For the first time, the dragon-man resented Life. Had he still been what he originally was, a single strand of True Lightning would have killed him on the spot, but this uselessly excellent Life would not allow it. Whoever the master, Life stayed faithful to its proper work: to make one live long, and to make one strong. The dragon-man was shut inside a wheel of being restored and dying.
His mind had flown long ago. Reason and feeling had been ground down like dust, and only the instinct of the flesh was left to carry thought onward. Even that was nothing but a thrash to keep from brain death. It was pain he would never have had to suffer, if only his mind had collapsed clean.
"Kh…"
He wanted to scream until the scream felt good. He wanted to beg them to save him—or else to kill him. Do you know the feeling of lightning running through your blood? Of that blood evaporating, and filling again? Do you know the passage of a brain turning to ash, of becoming a drooling idiot, of the mind coming back? Of every joint of bone coming apart one by one, then being fitted together a fraction out of true? And the muscle—do you know the sensation of every fiber replaced, entire, by lightning?
He wished he had no nerves. Then, at least, it might have hurt a little less.
Handle Life, and escape? Nonsense. The moment the lightning touched his body—the moment the pain made his reaction lag—the match was decided.
Now he only waited for death.
Kuu-gu-gu-gu…
The clouds sank away, and Heaven's punishment ended. In the dragon-man's eyes, frozen in the very posture of blocking, there was no focus. Life still worked in his chest. There was not a wound on him. Even so, one look was enough to name the winner.
With his will gone, the body ought to have slumped limp. Whether the aftermath of the current still held him, the dragon-man did not stir at all, as if rigor mortis had already come. Only the lift of his wings was gone, and he dropped as if the ground itself had given way beneath him.
Shuuung.
Thud!
Tremble. Tremble. Tremble.
Crashed to the earth, the dragon-man's body shook hard. Between the scales, current seeped out like grime.
Dan Chuyeon came slowly down as well. The moment his two frail feet touched the ground—
"Ha…"
As if to collect the price, he vomited life from every opening in his body.
The things that composed Dan Chuyeon. From worthless flesh—bone, meat, muscle, the eyeballs among them—to past, present, future, possibility, even fate. Nature began to call in the debt on the power it had lent. Watching life crumble and vanish beneath his feet, Dan Chuyeon smiled bitterly.
"I'm dying… Me…"
He had gone too far. However strong the enemy, he had not needed to go this far. Half of half of half of this power—and then only half of that again—and he still would have won. He could have won playing soccer with his feet. But he had not. First, his father had collapsed, and the blood had rushed to his head. And he had not wanted to bring the enemy down while measuring out any mercy. He had not wanted to breathe the same air as that thing for one more minute, one more second.
The result was that he was paying the price, with not a penny of the power he had been given left for him to use.
"Where does death end…? Do I meet Dad?"
He was afraid. Of what came after death. Of how his mother would live, left alone. Of his master. Of the people who would remain.
"Haha… I really can't accept it."
Tears poured. His face was soaked through, and his mouth filled with water.
"Dying… is scary…"
He tried to wipe the tears with his hand, but it was piss on a frozen foot. Wipe, and wipe, and wipe—he did his best to soothe himself. It was only a child's tantrum. In the end, having given up on himself, Dan Chuyeon lifted feet that would not leave the ground.
"If I have to go, I'll go, but…"
He went to the dragon-man. The dragon-man lay with his eyes rolled back.
"…Fuck. This bastard's alive."
Was it because death was close? He could faintly tell whether another person lived or not. The dragon-man was alive. Even after taking that attack.
"That thing doesn't even know its own master…"
He resented the Stone of Resurrection. It could not save its rightful owner, and poured its whole strength only into the one who had stolen it. Had there ever been a thing so ungrateful?
"…I'll have to drive him into the Earth's core."
Perhaps it sensed the danger to itself. Life flickered, almost as if in protest.
"Hah. And what crime did you ever commit."
He seized the necklace and tore it free. Fortunately, the dragon-man did not spring up and catch him by the wrist. Dan Chuyeon quietly looked at the Stone of Resurrection. The gaze must have been too much to bear; the Stone shyly hid itself inside the necklace.
"…Only the last thing left."
Dan Chuyeon looked down at the dragon-man. Cut this one's breath, and his work would be finished.
"Go well. We'll see each other in the same place."
Then I'll listen properly to what you have to say.
From the power draining out of him, he scraped together a speck. Set beside the power that had been all-knowing and all-powerful, it was a miserably shabby thing. Even so, it was enough to kill this one. The hand that held the final lightning came down toward the dragon-man's throat—
Skree.
It stopped at the very end.
Why. Why were that phantom thief's words coming back to him? I'm a man with nothing left to do but wait for the day I die.
This man is an enemy. The enemy who smashed my family to pieces. Let him die, and not one person will grieve. So why did I stop?
A little. Just a little lower, from the fingertips. The last lightning would sear him through from the inside. He isn't even conscious. It would end without pain.
"There's not a single reason to stop…"
All he had to do was bring it down without thinking. Then it would all be over. The source of the conflict was nowhere he could name, and the hesitation stretched as long as eternity.
Even in that moment, the phantom thief's words went on, and they bound his thoughts. It felt as if killing this thing here would be a mistake he could never take back.
"…Then what the fuck do you want me to do?!"
Unable, in the end, to find an answer, Dan Chuyeon swung his hand outward. The lightning he had drawn up, and drawn up again, struck the void.
Wooooom!!!
That became the detonator. The void's isolation came undone, and color was laid over everything. Blue paint was stroked in one line, then two; gray paint and yellow paint drew the ground. The paint of the air upended its bucket, and white paint rose. He caught the smell of society, one he had smelled before. A familiar street opened out—the internet café he favored, the snack shop he loved to eat at, the coin karaoke he used to visit with his friends. Ordinary life was there. Ordinary life that was happy, that had been happy.
"They haven't woken yet… Good."
He could see his mother and his friend, laid out on a bench. They were asleep, knowing nothing of the world.
"…Better they don't see their child go."
They say a child's greatest unfilial sin is to die before their parents. Dan Chuyeon hoped that sin might be pared away, even a little.
"Dad is… over there."
His father, whom he had sheltered inside the void, was being set down by the phantom thief at his mother's side.
"Is it finished?"
The phantom thief came closer.
"…Yes, well. More or less."
Dan Chuyeon looked away, embarrassed.
"You didn't kill him."
"…I meant to. Your words stuck in my head, and my hand wouldn't go."
"Didn't I tell you to forget them?"
"How am I supposed to forget? It was advice, in its way."
Dan Chuyeon laughed, hollow.
"Well, because of that, I couldn't even kill my enemy."
"You made a choice that isn't easy."
"I did… To think letting him live was harder than killing him…"
"Isn't it usually the other way around?"
"How did it end up like this…"
"Mr. Dan Chuyeon."
The phantom thief removed his mask.
"I may not be qualified to say this."
Srrk.
The black-haired young man pressed the mask to his chest and bowed in silence.
"I pay my respects to your choice."
At that sudden gesture, Dan Chuyeon blinked.
"…I think you're misunderstanding something. It's not like I forgave my enemy. I still want to tear this bastard apart."
"I know. But your judgment deserves to be praised."
"Why? Just because I didn't kill him?"
"That 'just' is exactly the point."
The phantom thief settled the mask back into place.
"Mr. Dan Chuyeon. I have never killed a person."
"…Really? Looking at you, I'd have thought you'd put away more than a few."
"I swear on the Phantom Thief's honor, and on his promise, that I have absolutely never killed a person."
"And what does that have to do with me right now?"
"Mr. Dan Chuyeon. They say the first button is always the hard one to fasten."
"Murder is the same."
"The first kill is hard enough to remain a nightmare, but the second, and the third, are far easier."
Repeat that, and repeat it again, and before long—
"Murder becomes a very easy road, one you choose even before you decide what you mean to do."
"That one's in the way? Then kill him."
"Won't agree with me? Then kill him."
"Put me in a bad mood? Then kill him."
"…That's just a lunatic."
"That's right. A lunatic."
But.
"I can do that."
"……"
The smile of the white mask sent a chill up his spine. Nature whispered. Possible, it said. And worse than that. No problem at all.
"The punishment of the law? The eyes of society? Nothing of the sort can stop me from killing."
"Then what would I become?"
"Not a phantom thief, and not anything else. Simply a mass murderer."
Killing while saying there had been no choice. Killing while saying it was for a great cause. A mass murderer who was neither one thing nor the other.
"Murder, for me, is a line. A line that must never be crossed."
"A precious line, one that keeps my humanity."
"That is why I don't kill. Because a great many people get hurt."
"Mr. Dan Chuyeon."
"You can do the same."
"…"
Dan Chuyeon could not deny it. He had already been shown the limit of what he was. Himself, throwing omniscience and omnipotence around however he pleased—if he came to think of murder as easy and convenient, and grew used to it, what would he become?
"Of course, this may be a leap. A groundless supposition."
However.
"Better not to. For your own sake, more than anyone's."
"…I'll take it to heart."
Dan Chuyeon turned the words over slowly.
"Thank you for hearing me out at such length. It's over now, so let's go home."
"…I can't go."
Dan Chuyeon raised his hand to show it. The hand had already turned to dust as far as the wrist.
"There's somewhere else I have to go."
"You don't have to go."
"This is something even the Stone of Resurrection can't bring back. It's a rightful price."
A fair and open contract, struck with nature. Life had no standing to interfere.
"Who says so? That even the Stone of Resurrection can't save you?"
But at the phantom thief's confident words, the common sense he had learned in his own body fell apart.
Why the Stone of Resurrection had been given that name, and not the Stone of Life. The phantom thief accepted the necklace.
"…Can you really do it?"
"Not I. He will be the one to save you."
The phantom thief pointed. There, playing with all his heart, was Another One.
"Who is that?"
"The maker of the Stone of Resurrection."
"So don't worry."
"The child has suffered. Giving him a reward to match—"
"—isn't that what an adult ought to do?"