The walk back to the dormitory was a journey through a nightmare. Zero moved on autopilot, a ghost haunting the moonlit, deserted pathways of the academy. He kept to the shadows, his movements born of an instinct he didn't know he possessed, but his mind was a thousand miles away, trapped in the suffocating confines of that grimy, blood-soaked alley.
He could still feel the jarring, sickening crunch of the brick impacting Gregor's skull, a phantom vibration that traveled up his arm and settled deep in his bones. He could still smell the coppery tang of blood, a scent that now seemed to cling to the back of his throat, a permanent stain on his senses.
He reached his dorm room, his hand fumbling with the key, his fingers clumsy and numb. He stumbled inside, barring the door behind him with a quiet, final click that sounded like a tomb being sealed. The room was dark, the only light a sliver of pale moonlight filtering through the single, grime-streaked window. It was a pathetic, threadbare sanctuary, but it was his.
He stood in the center of the room, his body trembling, a violent, uncontrollable shudder that started in his core and radiated out to his fingertips. The cold, analytical commander who had navigated the fight, the pragmatic operator who had seen the flaws in the world, was gone. In his place was a sixteen-year-old boy who had just killed a man.
The ghost of Ashe, suppressed and caged for so long, erupted. It was a tidal wave of pure, unadulterated horror.
You killed him. You killed him. Oh, gods, you killed him.
The thought was a frantic, screaming chorus in his mind. He looked down at his hands. His right hand was covered in brick dust and the dark, flaking stain of Gregor's blood. His left palm was a mess of shallow, angry cuts from the shattered bottle, the blood welling up and dripping in a slow, rhythmic patter onto the floorboards.
Blood. So much blood.
A wave of nausea, hot and acidic, rose in his throat. He staggered to the small, cracked basin in the corner of the room, his movements stiff and jerky, like a broken automaton. He fumbled with the pitcher of cold water, his shaking hands sloshing half of it onto the floor before he managed to fill the basin.
He plunged his hands into the icy water.
He began to scrub, a frantic, desperate, almost religious act of purification. He scrubbed until the water turned a pale, sickly pink, the brick dust and grime swirling with the evidence of his sin. He scrubbed until his knuckles were raw, until the cuts on his palm burned with a clean, sharp agony.
But when he pulled his hands from the water, he could still see it. The blood was gone, washed away into the basin, but the stain… the stain remained. A phantom, crimson shadow that clung to the lines of his palms, a mark that no amount of water could ever wash away.
He stumbled back from the basin, his breath coming in ragged, panicked gasps. He felt trapped, cornered, the four walls of his small room pressing in on him like the walls of a coffin. The silence was deafening, amplifying the frantic, terrified beating of his own heart.
He saw Gregor's face in the shadows. The initial, arrogant sneer. The flicker of confusion. The final, dawning look of terror and disbelief as the brick descended. He saw the light in his eyes go out. He had done that. He had been the one to extinguish a life, to sever a thread of fate, to turn a living, breathing person into a still, cooling piece of meat.
A monster. You're a monster.
The thought was not his own. It was Ashe's, a voice of pure, childish terror and grief. He had spent a decade in his first life as a porter, a scholar, a non-combatant. He had seen death, acres of it. He had cataloged the bodies of slain heroes and monsters alike. But he had never been the cause. He had been an observer, a piece of baggage on the grand, bloody stage of history.
Now, he was an actor. He had stepped onto the stage and played his part, and the applause was the sound of a man's skull cracking open.
He sank to his knees, his back sliding down the rough plaster of the wall. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to hold his fracturing soul together. The cold from the void, the diamond-hard rage that had been his shield, was gone, shattered by the brutal, visceral reality of his own actions. All that was left was the trembling, terrified ghost of a boy who had been murdered and had now become a murderer in turn.
He thought of the System's horrifying reward. Flesh Devourer's Strength. A skill that compelled him to become a ghoul. It wasn't a choice. It was a consequence, a punishment for the crime he had just committed. His power was not just a tool for revenge; it was a curse, a parasitic entity that was actively twisting him into something that was no longer human.
What am I becoming?
The question was a raw, silent scream in the darkness. He had wanted a second chance. He had wanted revenge. He had thought the path was a straight, clean line of righteous fury. He had never considered the price. He had never considered the cost of a ghost learning how to kill.
He sat there for hours, a huddled, trembling shape in the dark, the water in the basin slowly settling, the pink tinge of his sin a quiet, damning accusation in the moonlight. He did not sleep. He did not move. He was trapped in the aftermath, in the profound, soul-deep stain of his first kill.
The boy named Ashe had died in the throne room, but tonight, in this small, lonely room, Zero had just witnessed the murder of his ghost. And he was beginning to understand that the cold, empty thing that was left in its place was something far more terrifying than any Demon King.