"What are you talking about, Vellin?!" Kaiguya yelled back.

  I kept my finger pointed, "You! Whatever potency they used on you was the right one! Were you even beyond before?"

  Kaiguya looked down, "I was... I was..."

  Kaiguya bawled his fist, "I thought... I thought He blessed me."

  He mouthed that final He as if testing the shape of the name in his throat, and the sound came out fragile and ragged. Kaiguya’s shoulders trembled with a grief that had nothing to do with battle or pride. It was a raw, private fracture made public by the weight of what we’d seen. Within a single second, reality came to collect.

  Odina asked, "So what do we do now? Is there no way to save the Hatchahuk?"

  My head shook. The movement was small and tired. "We can't. The best we can do is end their suffering."

  Kaiguya released his killing intent. It wasn't aimed at me, it was spread. He was angry.

  The air itself changed as he pushed that rage into the world. A slow, rolling pressure that made the leaves shiver and the birds hold their breath. It rolled over the clearing like a tide, a palpable thing you could feel against your skin. Hunters who had spent their lives reading sign and scent would have flinched, children would have crawled under benches if they could. It was the kind of intent that announces itself not with words but with consequence.

  I was getting angry too. This is sort of my fault. Lucas is obviously helping Ryuha for his own goal of revenge. He thinks that Surge will allow him to kill me. It won't. I can only hope Ryuha doesn't have an even stronger version. Ryuha, Kanglim, and Lucas conducted an experiment on an entire people. Hundreds. Now they have the right potency to spread. They'll easily garner riches that rival ours. We need to destroy Surge before it becomes uncontrollable. There's one silver lining. Kaiguya has all the reason in the world to help me now.

  I said, "Kaiguya. When this ends, would you like to avenge your people?"

  Kaiguya cracked his knuckles, "With pleasure."

  It was not just rage but commitment. The way he said with pleasure had none of the lightness the word usually carries, it was a sharpening of the soul into purpose.

  I leapt, "Let's go to the frontline, and end this."

  We moved together, weaving through a forest still littered with the aftermath of struggle. Underbrush whipped past our legs; the ground had been churned by many feet. We went quiet, the small conversation that might have flitted between us swallowed by the need to see clearly, to not miss anything. Our footsteps were practiced, low, careful; each of us knew the cost of not noticing a single sign.

  We made it to the frontline. Bodies everywhere. Most of them were the Hatchahuk. The most important thing for a warrior is his mind. They're mindless now, so even a weaker warrior could beat them.

  Some of them slumped against trees, others half-buried in trampled brush. Limbs lay at unnatural angles, mouths frozen in half-roars, eyes stained glassy. A gray dust rose where a boot had scraped the earth. The Sinsik fighters stood in ragged lines, faces hard and hollow from sleeplessness. Their weapons were smeared with blood. Their hands trembled despite the armor and the discipline. Many of them had been thrust into this defense against neighbors turned nightmare.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I saw something that made my stomach churn.

  I said, "Kaiguya, Odina, stay back."

  The simple order was the kind that needed no question. I pointed with a hand that didn't shake, the small, precise motion of someone who had to keep moving. They hesitated only a breath, then backed, eyes wide and hard.

  The bodies were not only men. Women and children littered the clearing too. The sight made bile rise in my throat. Small fingers were still curled as if reaching for something. Little shoes lay where the feet had kicked in a flight that never finished. The Sinsik didn’t flinc,; their eyes had been educated by war. They held duty like armor. I, on the other hand, felt each child's broken face as a stone in my gut.

  I don't know why that went over my head, but it did. Maybe Ryuha wants to advertise it as something you can take for self defense? Whoever planned this either did not care who wore the first dose or cynically intended to show every corner of the world what Surge could do, a public demonstration of raw effect.

  For now, this ends.

  I used all of my speed and began tearing through the Hatchahuk with Mingling Cuts. I tried to decapitate them, to give them the quickest death possible. I moved across the forest. The Sinsik just watched. This wasn't all of them, but it was most. The rest would be stragglers, and taken out eventually.

  The motion of my cuts was a blur, wrist snapping, shoulder following, stepping through to finish each line clean. I aimed for the necks and the base of the skull, where my hand blade could bring swift silence. None of them could resist. They simply collapsed. I felt the cheapness of their motions, the way life had been driven out of them piece by piece, and it made each strike more urgent, less ceremonial. I moved until I became enveloped in blood.

  Then, I stumbled upon a child. It was all adult women and men so far. The Sinsik didn't mind, but I did. Was I really... a child killer? Was he even a child anymore?

  The boy was small, ribs visible under dirt and torn cloth. His face had a smear of crusted blood that made his features hard to read. There was a wild look in his eyes that had nothing to do with play or curiosity, only a raw, animal edge. He launched himself at me with a sound that was both a scream and a shriek, the kind of noise that belonged to a thing that had forgotten what it was born as.

  He jumped, and roared unintelligibly. I looked at him for a second.

  In that second the world narrowed. There was no policy or philosophy, only the shape of a child's motion, the arc of a lunging weight. For someone whose training had reduced reaction to timing, the choice was brutely obvious, control would take longer than the breath he would take to reach me.

  I cut him.

  My hand found its mark. The body folded and went quiet so suddenly. It was different than any of my other kills. The child's stillness made the cost real in a new and terrible way, not an abstraction but a small, broken thing I had stopped with my hand.

  No way. The soul that was in there was long gone. Even though I didn't know you, I will avenge you. Your people didn't deserve this. Life is sacred, you say? Not always. But yours certainly was. For that, justice will come.

  The Sinsik looked away or looked at me with some grim calculation, their acceptance of the necessity did not make it lighter.

  One hour later..

  The basin was cold. My hands wrung in the water until the skin pruned and my fingers lost their firmness. I scrubbed at the blood under my nails with a rough stone until the water went from pink to a clearer, but not clean, color. My chest still throbbed where Lucas had struck me, but the bruise was gone.

  I finished cleaning the blood off of me in a water basin. I was shirtless. Odina walked by.

  She looked away, but sneaked a peek. She asked, "Are you okay?"

  There was no lie I could offer that would make a difference. "No."

  Then I imagined Kanglim and Lucas in my head, laughing.

  I didn't need a picture to know the grin it would be. A man who had paid no price standing above the ruin to count profit. The thought sent a small white-hot flare of anger through me. It sharpened focus rather than consumed me. I dried my hands on a rag and pulled my shirt on, the fabric sticking. "We need to inform Elder Alo."

  Odina rubbed the back of her head, "Sure."

  Would she want revenge too? If she did, she could come. I would take anyone along for the journey.

  Because this is the angriest I've ever been.