The air was thin, heavy with a silence so profound it felt like a weight pressing down on her chest. Aisha sat across from him at a sterile, metallic table in a small, white room. It was their first meeting since his capture, and the space was a cold, clinical contrast to the chaos of the ruined city. Kwandezi sat perfectly still, his wrists and ankles secured to the chair with power-dampening cuffs. The only thing that moved was the faint, pulsating purple glow in his eyes. Captain Akanni stood by the door, a silent, imposing shadow, his presence a constant reminder of the leash Kwandezi was now on.
"I don't get it," Aisha started, her voice a little too high, a little too strained. "Why didn't you just let us kill it? The monster. You were a master. You were winning."
Kwandezi's head tilted slightly, a gesture of mild annoyance. "You and your team were in the way. It was inefficient. I simply cleared the path."
"You weren't fighting the monster, were you?" Her voice dropped to a low, earnest whisper. "You were fighting yourself. I saw it."
She saw it. God dammit. She saw me. His internal monologue was a torrent of self-loathing. She saw the pathetic, terrified kid who can't even get himself killed. She saw the truth.
"You're a fool," Kwandezi said, his voice a dry, rasping sound. "You saw what you wanted to see. You're an optimist in a world that chews up and spits out people like you."
"Maybe," she countered, her voice surprisingly steady. "But I've been around monsters my entire life, and I know the difference between something that wants to kill you and something that just wants to be left alone."
He laughed, a sharp, humorless sound that scraped against the silence. "You think you know me? You think you saw something? You're an empath, not a god. You felt my grief, my self-loathing, my rage. All of that is real. But you didn't feel the other thing. The cold. The emptiness. The part of me that just wants to watch the world burn."
"That's not you," Aisha insisted, her hands clenching into fists on the table.
"It is now," he said, his voice a chilling monotone. "You saw me kill your friends. You saw me enjoy it. Don't lie to yourself, Operative."
"You didn't enjoy it," she shot back, her voice filled with a desperate conviction. "You were playing with them, yes. But you weren't happy. You were... bored. It was a game to you. That's what's so terrifying. You're a child playing with toys he doesn't care about. The Captain gave me your mission. My job is to be your anchor. He thinks I can calm the monster inside you."
Kwandezi's eyes narrowed, a cold, calculating look entering them. "An anchor. That's a good word for it. A leash. A chain. He's not trying to save me. He's trying to control me. He's trying to use you to keep the beast at bay."
Aisha didn't flinch. "I'm willing to be your anchor if it means you don't kill anyone else. If it means you don't have to be that... thing. I saw the person underneath all of that. You hated yourself for what you were doing. Tell me I'm wrong."
He was silent for a long moment, the pulsing purple light in his eyes flaring for a second before dimming. God, she's good. She's so terrifyingly good at this. He had spent his entire life building walls, and she was effortlessly walking through them. He couldn't lie to her. He couldn't lie to himself.
"You're not wrong," he finally admitted, his voice a low, painful whisper. "I hated myself for what I was doing. I still do. But that hatred is what keeps the Void Host at bay. It's the only thing that keeps me human. It's my purpose. My life is a testament to how utterly worthless I am."
"That's not true," she said, reaching a hand out towards him, stopping just short of the table. "You're not a curse. You're a person. You deserve to live a normal life."
"A normal life?" Kwandezi scoffed, the sound filled with bitter amusement. "My mother died for me. She was killed because I was 'useless.' I was banished because I couldn't protect her. I have no purpose. I'm a machine, a tool. And now I'm a monster who has to kill more monsters. What's the point?"
"The point is you can save people," Aisha said, her voice filled with a powerful, earnest conviction. "You have a power that no one else has. You can stop this war."
"This war isn't the problem," Kwandezi said, a cold, bitter edge to his voice. "The monsters... they are not the enemy. They are just a symptom."
Captain Akanni, who had been a silent observer this entire time, took a step forward. "Watch your tongue, boy. The Void-borne are the enemy. They are pure malice."
"Are they?" Kwandezi's head snapped up, his eyes now fixed on the Captain. "My family, the Banishers, are a Founding Family of the Veil. They control the flow of the Void energy, they harness it for power, for wealth, and for status. My ability was considered useless because it was 'Integrate.' It consumed the monster's power, but it could not be controlled. It was an anomaly. So they banished me. They banished me for an ability that could have helped them. They didn't banish me because they were afraid. They banished me because they are corrupt. This war isn't about humanity's survival. It's about a family trying to control a resource. The Void-borne aren't the enemy. They are the consequence."
Aisha's eyes widened in horror. She looked at Captain Akanni, but he showed no emotion. "That's a lie," she said, but her voice held no conviction.
"Is it?" Kwandezi's voice was a soft, cruel whisper. "The Veil isn't a family of saviors. It's a family of thieves. My mother tried to fight them. She tried to expose them. And they had her killed. They made it look like an accident, but I know the truth. My so-called useless power... it's a perfect weapon for fighting the monster my family created. The Void-borne are not the enemy. They are the consequences of a family's greed. And I am a monster, yes. But I am a monster with a purpose. I'm going to kill every single one of them. And I'm going to find the man who killed my mother. And I'm going to kill him, too."
Captain Akanni's face was a mask of cold, unyielding rage. He had not expected this. He had not expected Kwandezi to know the truth. He had not expected his carefully laid plan to be exposed. He had not expected the monster to have a purpose that was not his own. The game had just begun.