Revenge

Ren collapsed to the floor, choking on his blood as he clutched the sword lodged in his body, struggling to pull it out.

The leader remained on his feet next to Ren. He not only lacked his left arm, but an entire chunk of that side of his body. The blood grimly painted the floor below him. The damage Ren had done to him was grave.

Even with all of this damage, the leader could still talk, and arrogantly so. “Your brother was strong. A bit too strong, in fact. But what he had wasn’t enough.” He coughed and laughed at the same time. “Now—Now it’s your—”

SLAM!

I couldn’t stand to hear anymore of his words. I had to do what I could to help Ren, so I interrupted the leader’s deranged speech with a crushing blow to his face with one of my monstrous fists. He flew backwards, skidding for some time across the ground and leaving behind a scraping trail of blood.

Despite his already-horrendous injuries, I jumped toward him for more. I was going to make sure that Ren’s efforts didn’t go to waste.

Now, I wanted to kill him even more than before.

My feet pulverized what was left of his stomach as I slammed down from above after leaping several tens of meters into the air. His screams soothed my ears, but they didn’t stop me from unleashing what he deserved.

My bare fists battered his face, thumping blows destroying it during every second that passed. In spite of my efforts, and the lack of his teeth, however, the leader still had some words left in him.

There was still a light chuckle in his words. “Two out of three of you isn’t bad.” Another fist to the face. “You’ll have no chance on your own.” An elbow for good measure. “You won’t—”

“Shut up!” I raged as my fist snapped his nose out of place, blood spurting into my eyes.

His annihilation continued, but as I brought him closer to certain death, his face disappeared.

It darkened, and…changed. I didn’t know whose face it was, but, for some reason, it made me want to beat him down even more.

Suddenly, it spoke, its facial features still intact and seemingly untouched.

“I enjoyed every moment I killed your brother.”

A coldness shot through me as I realised who this face was; or, should I say, who I imagined the face to belong to.

“You bastard! Die you bastard!”

My onslaught continued as the leader’s face reappeared. But this time his face had become indistinguishable. His mouth, his ears, his eyes, his face…they were all crushed to mush and flattened to almost nothing.

My fists dripped with blood, my breaths becoming louder and heavier by the second.

For a moment, I got lost in my rage, and let out something I was holding in for quite some time.

“You had no reason to kill him! He did nothing to you! He was harmless…he wasn’t anything to you! You killed him and got away with it. Well, this time, I won’t let you get away with it!”

And with that, I reached for what was left of him with both of my hands, extended my palms and showered him with a deadly surge of fire for as long as I could hold it for.

It was clearly overkill, but in this instance, it made sense to do what I did.

I had got my long-awaited revenge.

My hands soon dropped, twitching in agony at how vigorously I had used them. I started to control my breaths, and changed back to my usual state. This wasn’t something I had commanded, and so I assumed I had used up all of the strawberry’s power.

I stood over the leader as I glanced at his remains on the ground, before a sudden thought struck me.

“Ren!” I cried.

As I sprinted towards where he lay in his beast-form, I berated myself for getting too caught up in getting my revenge.

“Ren!” I said as I crouched to his side and picked him up by the back of his head.

“Say something, Ren! Are you okay?”

Instead of speaking, Ren made a face. He smiled and choked on some blood as he tried to laugh.

“Ren! What are you doing? What can I do to help you? Is there anything?”

Again. No words, just a silly face. He coughed this time as he tried to laugh.

I couldn’t quite understand why he was so upbeat. What exactly about this situation was so funny? Did he not fear dying? Or did he believe in me so much he was trying to blurt out some inspirational words of motivation on his deathbed?

“That—that was probably the coolest thing—.” He coughed again, but wasn’t letting his agony get in the way of finishing what he had to say. “That was the coolest thing any of us have done since we got here.”

“Ren?” I cried.

“I’ve never seen you so angry before.”

“Ren, I don’t understand! Why aren’t you answering me? What can I do to save you? You’re dying!”

I could feel the blood from his wound running down my hand. There was a lot of blood and it was leaving Ren’s body at an unprecedented rate.

“There’s—There’s nothing you can do.”

“What do you mean by that, Ren? There must be something!”

“Ah, Taro. You're being so loud and overdramatic.”

I stared back at him blankly this time. There wasn’t anything else I could do or say.

“Don’t you remember anything I tell you?” Ren said with a smirk.

“What are you talking—”

As I went to speak, Ren began to revert back to his normal self.

His body suddenly appeared fully replenished, unharmed and unbloodied.

How could I forget?

Shocked by this revelation, or more accurately, reminder, I watched Ren jump to both feet, his smile larger than ever.

“That was a close one, eh Taro? If I hadn’t eaten one of those strawberries, I—”

I stopped Ren in his tracks, leaping towards him and wrapped my arms around his body.

“I thought you were dead for good, you idiot. Couldn’t you have just said all of this from the beginning?”

“I mean, I could have. But I didn’t think you, of all people, would forget something so important.”

I squirmed a little in response.

“And besides, I didn’t think you really thought I was dying. Didn’t I tell you I was going to lead us to the very end?”

We both dropped to the floor, letting go of each other and laughing nervously through the exhaustion.

Our bodies had healed, but our minds were still shattered.

I sprawled out with my arms and legs wide, Ren doing the same beside me.

Together, we gazed at the moon as it rose, glowing with unshaken beauty.