Angel of Death

“So what if you broke free? You still can’t escape that circle!” Renji laughed, his voice cracking with madness.

Silver slammed his fist against the invisible force field rising from the pentagram’s edge. It hummed with a low, violent frequency. Beside him, Vanessa finished dissolving the last of the shadows binding her wrists as the two shot daggers at the man in the robe. 

Renji ignored them, turning his attention to the small iron cage in the corner. He reached in and dragged out Sachi’s boy.

He didn't just pull him; he yanked the child by his hair, throwing him onto the cold stone floor near the circle's edge like a sack of refuse.

The boy let out a weak, wet cough. He was in a state of ruin. 

His skin was gray and translucent from lack of sun, stretched tight over his ribs. His lips were cracked and bloody, and where he should have had a front tooth, there was only a swollen, purple gap. But worst of all were the circular burns on his small arms, test marks from the acid.

“The innocence of the human soul... the energy it releases... it is vital” Renji lectured, pacing like a predator. “I’ve already failed twice. I had to dissolve those useless scum in acid so no one would find the mistakes. But this brat? He was feisty. Even wasted a vial during the struggle when he tried to escape.”

Silver’s veins bulged on his forehead as he remembered the vial in Sachi's pumkin patch. His vision tunneled. The sound of his own heart was like a war drum as Renji kicked the boy in the ribs. 

The poor child didn't even have the strength to cry out; he just curled tighter into a ball, shaking.

“He’s talking about blood pacts... Deities...” Vanessa whispered, her voice trembling with realization. “Silver, he’s not an Alchemist. Alchemy is the science of equivalent exchange. This... this is borrowing power from the abyss. An occultic blood mage? No... He’s a Gedō, a master of Yōjutsu.”

“It’s no use!” Renji cackled, seeing Silver eye the barrier. 
“If you try to exit that barrier, the deities I worship will slice you to ribbons! My blood is the contract. My soul is the price. In exchange, I get safety, and the power to stop the likes of you!”

Silver tested it, shoving his hand forward, causing the air to shriek as invisible blades instantly flayed the skin from his knuckles. He recoiled, blood dripping onto the stone. The Wizard stared at the blood and realized the cost. 

To leave was to be destroyed.

The air in the room grew heavy as Silver dropped into a sprinter's stance. His boots dug into the cracks of the stone floor as he preapred to launch. 

“I just have to be fast enough”

His muscles coiled, tight as steel cables. He lowered his head, his breathing slow and steady, focused only on the space between him and Sachi's boy.

“What are you doing?!” Vanessa gasped 

“You’ll be shredded before you take a step! You’ll kill yourself!”  

Silver didn't look back. 

“Get back and trust me!”

'   Trust me. '

The words hit Vanessa like a physical blow, echoing through time. She was instantly transported back to the forest, to the moment Silver’s hands had tightened around her throat, choking the life out of her. She had whispered those words then, right before the darkness took her and he had obeyed.

This time, looking at his broad back shielded by his coat, the memory didn't bring fear. It brought clarity.   She saw a man willing to walk through a meat grinder for a child he didn't know.

Her panic dissolved into a strange, warm melancholy. A soft smile touched her lips, a smile of absolute faith. She stepped back, her eyes tracing the line of his shoulders.

'    I trust you.   ' 

she thought, feeling safe even as he prepared to die.

Renji’s arrogance faltered. He looked at Silver’s stance, then at the barrier. “You’re bluffing. No human can survive that. You’ll be mince meat!”

Silver lifted his head and grinned, a feral, terrifying expression.

“You idiot” Silver said, his voice low, vibrating the floorboards

“If you know who I am, you should know my magic. It isn't simple healing. My Death Magic allows me to reject the law of causality itself.”

Renji took a step back, his eyes widening.

“The world says if I walk through a blade, I die” 

 Silver roared, his mana flaring black and white.

  “But my magic dictates that the cause does not equal the result! I am going to deny my own death long enough to pummel your ass into the ground!”

BOOM!!!

Silver launched himself.

Time seemed to fracture.

To Renji, it looked like a blur of motion, but to Silver, every millisecond was an eternity of agony. As his body smashed into the invisible barrier, the resistance was absolute. The deity’s protection didn't just cut; it tried to erase him.

Skin parted. Muscle severed. Blood sprayed in a fine mist.

In the milliseconds it took for Silver to force his mass through the wall, he was flayed alive. He emerged on the other side a ruin of a man, covered in thousands of lacerations.

Renji’s jaw dropped. His eyes bulged, staring at the bloody demon flying toward him. Terror, cold and primal, seized his heart.

But Silver didn't fall.

As his boot hit the free air, he jumped up and his magic detonated. The thousands of wounds glowed with a blinding, holy white light as he descended upon Renji like an Angel of Death. The reality of his injuries was overwritten. The skin knit together, the blood vanished. It was as if the pain itself was deleted.

Silver was whole, and he was airborne.

Gravity seemed to suspend him midflight. He hung in the air above the Yōjutsu-shi, his coat flaring out like the wings of a crow.

The scene held for a breath. Vanessa stood in the back, arms crossed, a smug, vicious satisfaction radiating from her. The child on the floor looked up through swollen eyes, witnessing a god descend. Renji raised his hands in a pathetic, trembling attempt to shield his face.

And Silver... Silver was a vessel of pure wrath. 

His fist was cocked back, knuckles white, carrying the weight of every tortured child, every grieving mother. His expression was one of cold, absolute judgment.

“NOW IT’S YOUR TURN!”

The impact was apocalyptic. Silver’s fist connected with Renji’s face, the sound wet and crunching, like a sledgehammer hitting a melon.

Renji didn't just fall; he was spiked into the floor. His head bounced off the stone, blood spraying from his mouth, nose, and ears in a violent arc. His eyes rolled back into his skull so far only the whites showed.

The pentagram’s glow died instantly. 

Vanessa didn't waste a second. She sprinted past Silver to the boy.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you” she whispered, her voice breaking as she pulled Junior into her lap.

Up close, the damage was even worse.  Insects had crawled into his hair while he slept on the filthy floor, pus fell out from his wounds, the putrid smell of infection, the dirt ground into his open sores... it broke her heart.

Tears streamed down her face as she conjured a sphere of warm, healing water to wash away the filth.

“Let's go home” she sobbed, rocking him. The boy, feeling the first gentle touch he’d known in days, buried his face in her chest and wept profusely.

Silver watched them. He saw the way the boy flinched even at Vanessa’s kindness, the ruin of a child’s life and a trauma he would never forget.

He slowly turned his head to look at Renji, a cold hearted expression draped in shadows as he looked at the pathetic visage, twitching slightly.

A darkness rose in Silver’s chest, blacker than any magic.

Why let him live? Why take him back?  

 the voice in his head hissed. 

The law is too slow. He deserves to be erased.

Silver’s fists clenched at his sides. He took a heavy step toward the unconscious man, lifting his boot, ready to stomp Renji’s skull into dust, preapred to crush the life out of him right there and then. 

“Silver.”

Vanessa’s voice was soft but firm, observing the murder in his stance. She looked up from the child, her eyes red-rimmed 

“Don’t”

She pleaded, wiping her tears.

“I want to kill him too. I want to tear him apart. But... look at him.”

She gestured to the boy.

 “And think of Sachi. This isn't our revenge to take. It belongs to them.”

Silver stopped, his boot hovering inches above Renji’s neck. He took a deep breath, the rage settling into a cold, hard stone in his gut as he lowered his foot and turned away.