Chapter 219: Traitor

Ishiki went down on the floor… his eyes widening to their limits. Both his knees hit the ground, one of his hands pushing against the cold floor.

“AGHHHH!!” He didn’t want to, but his body didn’t listen to him.

His scream bounced off the walls of the throne room and came back to him, never leaving this isolated place.

His vision had gone to white at the edges and was narrowing. His left arm had been useless since the dragon smashed his head into the ground and his right was shaking too badly to push him upright.

He breathed. In and out.

He was alive… the dragon was dead and he had the orb.

Those three things were true and everything else could wait.

“Well done, Ishiki.”

He had heard the voice a moment ago and his brain had not processed it because his brain had been occupied with the business of not losing consciousness.

And now that he heard it clearly, his blood went cold.

He knew that voice.

“I knew you could do it.”

He turned in a frenzy. How could anyone here know his name.

It took him longer than it should have as the motion of rotating from his knees sent a fresh spike of pain from the base of his skull down through his spine and his vision swam badly for a second.

He blinked it clear.

At the far end of the ruined room, at the entrance arch of the throne room, a figure stood bathed in the radiance of the golden, warm light.

Ishiki stared in bewilderment as he recognized the figure very clearly.

It was Kenji !

But the left arm that hung at Kenji’s side was wrong. The skin from the shoulder down had darkened to near-black and was pulsing with golden veins inside, a deep matte darkness that caught none of the lamplight. The fingers at the end of it were slightly too long and it felt demonic.

From the left side of his head, above the temple, a single horn curved outward. It was growing from inside and had pushed through the skin, creating a very grotesque and creepy stub at his head.

The right half of his face was normal, while the left half had various golden veins popping around his eye and his eye itself had turned red, as if it was washed with blood. Within the red eye there was a golden pupil.

He was smiling.

He had never seen it on a face that looked like this.

Ishiki’s body moved before his mind caught up with it.

He pushed himself backward across the floor, his legs scrabbling against the cracked tiles, hand dragging the Orb with him, leaving a smear of blood behind from his knees, until his back hit the base of a pillar and he had nowhere left to go.

He pressed against the stone and stared.

The figure that wore Kenji’s shape walked forward with Kenji’s unhurried pace, the darkened arm swinging naturally at his side. Each step was calm like the kind of walk that came toward you when it already knew you had nowhere to be.

The lamplight caught the horn as he moved further into the room. It was longer than it had looked from the entrance. The curve of it was almost elegant.

“Kenji.” The word came out of Ishiki’s throat. “What… what the hell are you doing here?”

Kenji stopped at a polite distance and looked around the throne room at the wreckage with an expression of mild appreciation.

“I have been here,” he said pleasantly, “the whole time.”

Ishiki’s heartbeat slammed against the inside of his chest. ’This… this whole time? Why didn’t I sense him? How does he know that I would be here? How did he come here? ’

Several questions assaulted Ishiki’s head.

“Please,” Kenji said, his smile taking on a new quality, “be careful thinking so loudly.”

Ishiki’s mouth closed. His thoughts went silent with the abruptness of a hand clamping over them.

Kenji tapped his temple with one finger. “I can hear them. Very Clearly.”

The cold in Ishiki’s chest had no bottom.

“How long,” Ishiki said. The words came out very flat. “How long have you been able to hear my thoughts?”

Kenji considered this with genuine thoughtfulness, as if the question deserved an honest answer.

“Since always!” he said.

Ishiki looked at the blackened arm, the horn and his face.

“What happened to you,” he said. It wasn’t a question exactly.

“Something is sharing my body with me.” Kenji’s tone didn’t change. “Has been for some time now, Oh! I will tell you what, It is not comfortable.” He glanced down at the dark arm as if noticing it for the first time. “The physical changes are its doing. I want you to understand that-”

“I don’t care what I’m supposed to understand right now.” Ishiki’s voice had found something steadier. But it was not calmness, he was nowhere near calm. But something dark and unsettling. “I want to know how you knew I was here.”

“You were going to come here.” Kenji looked at him. “Because I wanted to you to.”

“I made that decision ten minutes ago.” He blurted out. His mind had gone beyond anxious now.

“You made it before that,” The person in front of him said. “You made it the moment you killed that naive little girl with your own hands.”

The sentence sat in the air.

Ishiki stared at the person in front of him with unfocused eyes. His whole body was shivering without a stop.

’No… No, this can’t be! ’ Ishiki had always considered that only Yuki’s brother, who had the ability to control minds and Illusions, would have been able to get his title without him ever noticing.

But he was wrong!

He was utterly wrong!

“What is it all about…” Ishiki spoke in an adrift tone. “Do you… do you know about my title?”

“Yes!” Kenji’s eyes dropped to Ishiki’s closed fist. “And its all about that thing in your hand.”

“Give that orb to me, Ishiki.”

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