Ashes of the Elite-Chapter 43: Bad Tide

I explode forward like a blade loosed from its scabbard, the air itself tearing around me with every movement. Cain barely manages to parry my first strike, and the sheer force of it sends him skidding back multiple feet, boots digging grooves into the stone. The voices shriek in ecstasy, their cruel laughter echoing in my skull.

Look at him—shaken already, they whisper, serpentine and sweet. The past year pretending to guide you. He was sharpening the knife, Ayato, they hiss. Every "lesson" a leash. Every "correction" a chain.

I snarl and dive in again, my blade aimed with evil intent. Our swords clash in a storm of sparks and fury. Cain's form is still swift, but the usual grace that defines him is gone—replaced by hesitation, confusion. I see it in the tightening of his jaw, the way his strikes are just slightly slower, his footwork erratic. My power is burrowing into his mind like a parasite, showing him ghosts, shadows, guilt. I don't know what horrors he sees, but I hope they tear him apart.

"Dammit, Ayato!" he growls between gritted teeth, parrying another vicious strike.

"I am awake!" I roar. "I see things clearly for once!"

The voices twist every memory. Cain's smirk during training, his constant push for me to suppress my darker impulses—they frame it all as manipulation, domination. He feared you even then, they whisper. Wanted to break your will before it grew too strong.

And yet... even while his body fights against the horrors being projected in his mind, he's still keeping up. His blade catches mine again and again. Blocking. Redirecting. Never striking to kill.

"Ayato!" he hisses between parries, his voice hoarse, strained with effort. "Come to your damn senses man. This is insane and you know it!"

The voices crawl through my thoughts like centipedes, writhing with glee.

"Strike now, boy. End him before he becomes more dangerous. Before he puts the collar back on your neck."

Our blades clash again, and the impact cracks the ground beneath us. Cain's expression is a mix of fury and irritation, but still—he holds back. I can tell. His strikes are controlled, measured, just enough to defend, never to kill. It only enrages me more.

"Stop holding back!" I scream, lunging with another flurry of strikes, each one faster and harder than the last.

My blade arcs again—high, low, diagonal—strikes coming so fast they blur. Cain's sword deflects each with precision, but I see the strain. His movements, once as fluid as wind, are growing sluggish under the weight of my illusions.

The voices don't let up.

Yes, they hiss. Keep pressing. See how he staggers? Show him what it means to defy a god in the making.

Cain ducks a slash meant to take off his head, the edge skimming a few strands of hair. "Ayato!" he barks, twisting and countering with a blast of his air magic trying to knock me back rather than hurt me. "Your powers are twisting your mind! You're being manipulated—"

"You manipulated me!" I shriek, slicing again. "You trained me to be a weapon!

You taught me how to fight so I'd serve!"

He grits his teeth and forces me back with another sudden blast of air, launching me off my feet. I twist midair and land in a low crouch. My eyes meet his across the cracked earth—and for the first time, I see true hesitation in them. Real terror.

The voices howl with triumph.

You've outgrown him, they coo. Your leash is gone. Now unmake your jailor.

I rush him again, faster this time—too fast as my power continue their unholy assault on his mind. Cain tries to react, but I'm already inside his guard, blade aimed at his heart. He deflects just enough for the sword to graze his side, a thin line of blood coats my sword. He doesn't cry out—he just grunts and grabs my wrist, locking our arms together.

"Stop," he growls, breath hot in my face. "Listen to yourself. Look what you're doing."

"I am listening," I hiss, voice shaking with rage. "To the only voices that never lied to me."

He stares, horrified.

Around us, the front of the castle is a cratered warzone. Stone road shattered, trees splintered. The guards have long since fled behind the castle walls.

"AWAKENED CAIN WHATS GOING ON?" a voice calls

I twist in to see them a platoon of about 50 armored guards flooding out the now partially cracked gates, weapons drawn in panic. But they're not alone.

Howard.

Sergeant Blake

Lieutenant Kirper.

Even Count Ashland.

Cain glances their way, sweat slick on his brow, his expression sharp with urgency.

"Stay back!" he growls, teeth bared. "His power's unstable. It's—he's not in control."

Howard's voice cuts through the chaos, confused and worried but I can barely hear him through the roar of the voices in my head.

"Ayato my good man, what's wrong? Please talk to me!"

But the voices don't care to talk. They latch onto his trembling tone.

"Look at him," they sneer. "So scared. Not of you, but of his father. Of being a failure. You can taste it, can't you? That pathetic little brat. Let us show it to him. Let him live in it."

I don't hesitate.

I raise my hand toward him, and with a flick of my wrist, I tear through the veil of his consciousness and plunge him into his own personal hell. His knees buckle. His eyes go wide, unblinking, glassy with terror. He collapses forward, convulsing once before going still—passed out from the sheer weight of it. A puppet with cut strings.

Count Ashland rushes to him. The horror on his face doesn't register in me the way it probably should. It's... muted, far away.

Sgt. Blake doesn't take the same route.

"You son of a—MEN! TAKE HIM DOWN! BRING ME THAT MONSTER'S HEAD!"

Cain shouts, "NO! STAY BACK!" But it's already too late.

The voices cackle, ecstatic. "SEE?! They can't control you anymore so they choose to destroy you! No leash, no chains, so now they raise blades instead. Let them. Show them why the gods gave you US. Show them the power of a three-mark bearer."

I don't hesitate.

I smile—cold, clean, empty. The kind of smile you wear before a massacre.

Steel flashes. Spears lower. Boots pound the cobblestone.

And then I move.

Their swords look like they're moving in slow motion. I twist between the first five, Cain's sword art Aether Flow guiding my body like water through gaps in their defense. My blade flashes once—twice—cutting them down with a dancer's grace and a butcher's precision. Their cries are short-lived.

I do not waste energy. I do not feel regret. There is no hesitation in my hands. Each strike is clean, brutal, final.

"Why would that dumbass order these peasants to fight a God?" the voices laugh. "You're divine, Ayato. No man can match you. Cut them all down. Reap them like chaff."

Another falls. Then another. Their terror fuels me. Their screams only sharpen my hate. They should've stayed back.

I see Cain out of the corner of my eye, forcing his way through the chaos launching men backwards with his power away from me. He throws a wall of air between me and the last few that haven't died yet.

"STAND DOWN!" he roars, spinning on Sgt. Blake with fury in his voice. "ARE YOU MAD?! HES AN ELITE. YOU SENT THEM TO SLAUGHTER!"

Then he turns to me.

"AYATO," he says, voice raw, pleading. "You have to control yourself. This isn't you. This isn't you, kid. Come back!"

But I can't. Not yet.

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Because the voices are still whispering. Still laughing.

The voices howl in my ears, demanding blood.

"Strike him down, Ayato. End the slaver. End the Spellbreaker. What good is power if you don't use it? Be the change she wanted you to be, you can start by killing a dog of the false God King"

I grit my teeth as I stalk toward Cain, blade in hand, the taste of blood thick in my mouth. The world has become a blur of death and shadows. Every heartbeat is a thunderclap in my skull. A small, distant part of me—the last ember of my sanity—screams against it all, against what I'm doing. That whisper of self-awareness is enough to make me stagger. My steps slow, and I clutch at my head as if I could tear the madness out of it with my fingers.

Cain moves.

Fast.

But not fast enough.

He lunges at me in a desperate bid to end this—to knock me out to end it.

But the moment his feet leave the ground, the voices return like a crashing wave.

"FOOL! Weak, spineless child. You couldn't save her. You couldn't save your parents either. And now you won't even avenge her. Is that what love means to you? 

I throw my hand out and squeeze. Air bends. Cain freezes mid-stride, his whole body seizing in place like he's slammed into a wall. His eyes widen as he begins to twitch, his mind assaulted by the nightmare I weave into him.

Every drop of hatred I feel for him pours into that vision. Every twisted memory the voices feed me—of him barking orders, of him belittling me, of him watching as I suffered—floods into the illusion I force upon him.

He stands there, locked in place, his breath ragged, sweat pouring from his face as he fights whatever horrors I've put in his head.

"Take his head," the voices snarl.

I step closer, my blade rising. The remaining soldiers—Lieutenant Kirper, Sergeant Blake, the rest—they're frozen in place. No one dares move. They're watching a nightmare unfold.

And then I hear it.

Her voice.

Faint. Pained.

"...Ayato..."

It slices through the noise like a bell. I freeze. My blade halts inches from Cain's neck.

I turn.

She's there.

Cecilia.

Alive.

Barely standing, her arm twisted and broken, blood dripping down her temple, her blonde hair matted and tangled. But her eyes—those beautiful hazel eyes—are wide and locked onto mine.

She looks... horrified.

Of me.

"Stop," she breathes, voice cracking. "Please... just stop."

"A trick," the voices hiss. "She's not real. We showed you her body. She died. Kill the liar. Kill them all."

But she runs.

Despite her injuries, she stumbles toward me, gasping, shaking—and wraps her arms around me.

Her warmth sears into me like sunlight through frostbitten skin. I take a breath. The world shifts. The shadows peel back.

"I'm here," she whispers. "Ayato. Please... come back to me."

The voices scream in protest, clawing at my mind like wild animals caged and starved.

But it's too late for them.

I look down at her—really look—and for the first time since the madness began, I come back to my senses.

She's not an illusion.

She's not a ghost.

I drop my sword my hate disappearing no longer able to be twisted by my own fearmonger power .

My fingers tremble as I reach up and brush her hair from her face.

"I'm glad you're okay," I whisper, my voice hollow and frayed.

And then the weight of everything I've done crashes down on me.

The blood. The screams. The killings.

I fall forward into her arms, the world spinning into darkness.

And I pass out.