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I watched from the window in my room in the inn out onto the single road that ran through Aryas. I was waiting for the bandits to make their way into town and collect their due. Or at least the due that they perceived. Red stood by me and was pacing in circles. I think the dog was feeding off my anxious energy. Though I wasn't afraid of the Branwens I was wary and I was watching and waiting. I suppose that counted as anxious a little. The dog kept going around and around like a broken toy. I watched it a little before I shifted my gaze back out the little window.

I was also preparing myself to kill again. I lit a bowl and smoked it. I exhaled out the square window. The leaves and crystals burned in the little pipe and that pleasant nausea washed over me. I would be killing soon. A worthy opponent perhaps as well. It took more than your average hunter to keep up with me as I was now at what was probably my peak. Raven Branwen was such a huntress. Or she used to be. I was going to really pit myself against her as well. A life or death battle with only one of us walking away. I was hungry for that in a way that was far beyond food but I felt it in my stomach nonetheless.

It wasn't a bad thing per se. I suppose Rosé would view it as such. Ruby would too. The dark terror inside of me that wanted to kill people was a natural part of me. It was usually something I should resist - usually. Today was different. Today I would get to indulge it and feed the beast. Here was the thing about that monster. It would never be fed and fully satisfied. The more I gave in to it the more it wanted from me. The more ground I gave the more ground it took. I step back an inch here, it takes a mile there.

It was just as before when I killed, and killed, and killed and I was never content. I just kept spiraling into the mayhem. It was so easy to do and get lost inside of. Was that what was happening here? I didn't think so but I might not be a very good judge. I was supposed to conquer myself and not let something like this rule over me. Was I? Had I? Would I even know?

I tapped the ash out of my pipe out the window where it sprinkled to the ground as red hot snow. White with red embers inside of it. The little flakes fluttered fluidly and fully forward to the filthy floor.

I breathed in the dizziness. It buzzed my skull, towards the back. I exhaled and relaxed.

I saw them come into town from my perch. I grabbed my sword harness and put it on my back. Then I walked with heavy bootfalls out of my inn room.

"Master Cloud…"

"It's still just Cloud," I answered Rosé. "Seriously say it. Cloud."

"Cloud…" she whispered.

"What's up?" I asked back. I knew what the fuck was up. I was just being an asshole for the sake of it. Because I could. Gods above I hated myself. Why couldn't I be a good person even now? There just had to always be something.

"I just wanted you to know that you don't have to do this. There could be another way. You could look for a better way."

"Someone with real power has to stop Raven. That means me. Stay here, Rosé, unless you think you are willing to help out and kill some people."

She said nothing. She wasn't ready. She was just a kid.

So are you.

I didn't argue with that little voice in my head. All the logic was on its side. It would just make me lopsided to fight back. And I had a high that I was trying to enjoy. That at least was nice and I was allowed to have that.

"Neo!" I called out. She appeared beside Rosé. "We have some work to do. Won't you give me a hand?"

She nodded promptly and pulled along her parasol.

"Why does it have to be you?" Rosé demanded. "We can just leave."

"Because it can be me. And could you really leave these sheep herders to the bandit tribes? Could you really move on without doing anything? That's fucked. Isn't it?" I tagged her.

"Not as fucked as killing people," she swore at me for the first time. Good. Get a spine on her back. I was the first person that she really needed to stand up to. Her eyes were tear-flooding. She tried to hold back her anger and frustration. I heard in the tightness of her voice. But she didn't get it. I had no choice.

"Letting them get hurt when you could have saved them is just as bad as killing people if not worse," I disagreed right back.

I shifted my shoulder and swung the enormous sword harness. I reached up behind my head and rubbed the long red shaft. Neo investigated her stiletto. She would only be too happy to help me kill and probably torture these gangsters.

I walked out of the inn to meet the small group of well armed bandits. I paced opposite them and they drew up short when they saw me. I gathered up and gave the grip a tug. The broadsword came free in all it's six foot glory. I lowered the tip down at my quarry.

There were five of them in total and I could feel that they had their auras unlocked by the warning pressing against the inside of my brain. Two girls and three guys just stared right back at me. They readied their weapons. A spear here. A sword there. An assault rifle or two with long barrels. The lead girl drew two wicked recurved knives. She grinned at me. I frowned back at her. My face was like that of a statue.

The sun was harsh and it was right in my eyes in this shadeless plain. The whole sky was painted pink and red with the setting sun.

"Oh?" The girl asked. "We got ourselves a huntsman. A real hero type."

"You Branwen's local lieutenant?" I asked simply.

"Clearly," the girl flashed me a cocky grin with straight white teeth. She had brown hair and vivid lilac eyes. More like Yang's than Robin Hill's. That was where that line of comparison ended because unlike Yang's angular face the girl had rounder features.

"Will she come for you if you're in trouble?"

"I don't know. Never been in enough danger to find out."

"You are today."

Neo appeared right next to the girl and stabbed her right in the back. That was what kicked everything off, I think so at least.

I hovered towards them at sixty miles an hour and put my boot right into the guy with the spear's chest. Then I kicked him again with my other foot. I was taking actual steps in the dust. Then I brought my bronze and silver blade around and down on him. I shattered his aura like glass and killed him in all of a second. When did I get so strong? I have changed so much since that day I first killed a man. Now they dropped like flies around me.

I became a tempest of whirling blades. I sliced right through the assault rifle a girl had managed to level at me. I stepped into her range and kneed her in the chest. I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and I tossed her threw a window.

I took a hovering half step forward and swung upwards like a golf swing. The fast blow had the force of a train behind it. It lifted the boy with the sword off of his feet, and knocked him up into the air. I thrust my sword forward into the last boy's aura. I pulled upwards and flew into the air where the kid with the sword was still falling.

I slammed them both together and then I smashed them both into the dirt. The boy with the sword rolled on the ground off the kid with the assault rifle. He was moaning and holding his chest. I walked over him and hit him in the skull with the tip of my boot. He collapsed to the ground where he had been kneeling with his strings all cut.

The kid with the assault rifle made to get to his feet and to his credit he stood all the way up. But then in a single horizontal slash I flew over to him and made him fall in two pieces.

The girl with the gun climbed out of the window I tossed her through. She looked at the carnage and the mess I had made out of her pals. She dropped what was left of her weapon. She just tossed onto the ground and she held her hands up. I turned to Raven's Lieutenant. She had Neo's blade between two of her ribs and was in a nasty looking arm lock besides.

I exhaled and put the tip of my sword in the ground.

I let go of the long red handle and walked over to where the Lieutenant was subdued. Nice and slowly. I crouched down to look her in the face.

She spat in my face. I reached out tore a bit of cloth off of her outfit and wiped my face off. She struggled in Neo's grasp as I did it. Then I put one knee down in the dust and grabbed her by the jaw and forced her to look at me.

I stared for a long moment.

"I'm going to start beating you now. I'll stop as soon as Raven shows up. Then I'm going to kill her."

"And what if she doesn't?"

"Well then I won't stop."

I punched her across the face. Her head snapped around on her thin neck and I watched her spit out a globule of blood. Then I kicked her in her floating ribs. I broke one of them. Neo grinned up at me as she held on tight. The girl howled in agony. I stepped forward on her foot until little bones began popping.

"P-p-please," she started sobbing. Tears streamed down her pretty little face. I smacked across her cheek bone with my fist hard enough that I felt it in the bones of my hand. She rolled with that punch and was strangely quiet with just a dull whimper leaving her lips.

"That's enough." I looked up. There she was: Raven Branwen. She was stepping out of a swirling red and black portal. It collapsed behind her. I stared at her hard. She wouldn't confront me if she didn't think she could win. She had a trick to pull over me. It might just work too. But by the gods it better kill me. Or I would destroy her. I had a new move as well.

Her long black mane flowed out from behind her and she had her long dust blade in its sheath. Or blades as it were. Her weapon was a little like Weiss's with a rotating series of blades.

"I'm surprised." I walked over to my sword and pulled it free of the road. "Even if you noticed I wasn't sure you would show up. You didn't for the last two groups of bandits I killed. Why should this one be any different? And you know you can't beat me."

"Big talk," Raven growled at me. "I have something special for you this time. I got it just for you."

She pulled her blade on me. It was white and gold like the sun. And like the sun it was softly glowing. White dust. Her blade was infused with white dust.

"Expensive," I noted calmly. She could probably kill me with that. I leveled my blade at her. "Neo, kill the girl."

Neo pulled her knife through the lieutenant's ribs and slit her throat. She choked on her blood and died in the street.

I paced to stand right in front of Raven.

"You and I have a score to settle," Raven whispered.

I was already tired - so dead tired of talking. After the shit I went through every single night there was no way death or Raven scared me.

I activated my semblance with a thought of charge. Raven swung her sword. It lit up the orange evening day with a flash of golden light. The power of it tore deep into my aura and it flicked me through one of the buildings and back out the other side in torrent of raw energy unlike anything I had ever been exposed to. It seemed to unmake the world around us as the beam flashed. It easily tore away two thirds of my aura in a single blow.

But it just didn't kill me.

And Raven's sword crumbled into the wind.

She took her shot and failed.

That was it. That was her ace in the hole. And it didn't work. I was still kicking. So I flew like I had been launched from a canon and I used my greatest trick. I Omni-slashed her. I started with a massive overhead strike with both hands. Then I did a diagonal thrust forward down from the left. Then I hit her with a slash from the right side. I struck four times horizontally. Each blow held her in the air for the next as I let loose with all my power. I thrust into her chest and yanked upwards before I finished her off with a falling hammering slice.

She fell apart like her blade had. She just crumbled to nothing and fell in pieces. She dropped the revolver with the blades in it and the handle of her weapon.

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"Did you watch?" I asked Rosé at the inn.

"No." She was curt with me. She was none too pleased. "Did you have fun?" She sort of snarled it out at me.

"No," I answered just as tersely. "No I didn't. Not this time. Neo did. I think. But not me."

"Do you regret it?"

"Not a bit. Raven had to die. The world is a better place without her in it. The number of killers has decreased by one."

"You can't take everything on yourself."

"But I should take as much as I can. And I was able to take this. This was what I was able to do for the world. I can't slay hunger. But I can bring some peace. With Raven dead there is a little more peace in the world. Her bandit clans will collapse without her."

"But not for you. Don't you deserve peace?"

"I will never have true peace. It's not a question of whether or not I deserve it. I'm sorry, Rosé. We'll be leaving first thing in the morning so get your rest in. We should make it to Vale this week. You'll be able to see your brother again. You can also decide whether you want to keep learning from me. Now that you know me a bit better you should do some thinking about that."

"Of course I want to keep learning from you. How can you be so smart and so dumb at the same time?"

"Story of my life," I laughed a little. "Do some thinking about it anyways. You'll have your pick of tutors in Vale."

"What makes you say that?"

"You're talented and I'm not just saying that. You picked up swordplay fast and your aura training is going well. The only place you're a little behind where I'd like you to be is dust usage. But that's coming along too. You're a natural. Anybody would be happy to teach you."

"Except you," she accused.

"Of course I'm happy to teach you. Who says I'm not?"

"You keep trying to get rid of me."

"That's because you'd be better off with someone actually capable of teaching you. I'm messed up. But you know that."

"I don't want somebody else. I want you."

"Alright. Alright. Fine. I promise not to pawn you off on anybody else. Sound fair? I just want what's best for you."

"That's all I wanted. It… does bother me. Some of the things you do. But you challenge it. That makes it better. I can forgive you all of the crimes of your past if you just help me with my future. That's what I really want. And I want the best for you too. I can't be the only person in your life who does. There are the people you write to. They probably want the best for you as well. You can't keep doing this to yourself. You have to let go."

"Letting go would be a problem," I managed to bite the words out through grit teeth. "I can't afford to tighten up or to relax. I have to remain as I am or bad things will happen. Trust me on that. I'm this whole sort of fucked up mess. It's bad. That I do confess. And I can't go on living like this."

"So you'll kill yourself? Not using a gun but with your work?"

"I can't imagine dying any other way but fighting. Going down swinging. I told you that this job will kill me. Take me at my word even though I am a scoundrel. I've gotta die sometime. It might as well be on my own terms. Get some sleep Rosé. Things are always better after a restful night's sleep."

"You… you hypocrite," she stammered out - more shocked than angry.

"Yeah," I agreed.

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-WG