Severance

"I... I can feel my heart," Malevolent gasped, clutching his chest. "Why is it beating? MAKE IT STOP!"

From the rubble a pile of rocks shifted as Ezekiel crawled out, broken, bleeding, and barely conscious. But he saw it; the God shivering. He could smell the fear from a mile away.

The Jester’s madness receded for a split second, leaving only the sharp tactical mind of the Instructor, calling out for his colleage to finish the job!

"SILVEEEEERRR..." Ezekiel bellowed, his voice loud and boisterous "Wake up you idiot! This is no time to be napping! Didn't Chernobog teach you not to sleep on the job?! "

Near Vanessa, Silver’s fingers twitched, the shockwave of mana from the elf's struggle and the return of color jumpstarting his system as his eyes snapped open.

He saw Vanessa bleeding on the floor beside him and he saw the God, now mortal and rotting, languishing in the middle of the arena. 

Silver sat up, grabbed his daggers and rushed towards him. He didn't ask questions. He didn't check his wounds. He looked at the target, and he understood.

The God could die.

"Hey, Ugly!" Silver shouted as Malevolent turned, his eyes wide with panic "You wanted to know about death right?" the Death Mage grinned, charging his daggers with black and white mana.

"Class is in session."

Malevolent screamed, the shriek of a dying animal realizing the cage door was locked and it was about to be slaughtered!

Malevolent flailed helplessly, his rotting hands clutching at the air, summoning torrents of black sludge which he hurled at Silver, waves of entropy that should have aged the detective to dust in seconds, but shockingly Silver didn't dodge.

He walked straight into the wave of attacks, his skin turning grey and cracking, peeling away as a result  and then, in a flash of white mana, snapping back to its original state.

Cause: Total organ failure. 
Result: Rejected.

Silver gritted his teeth, the cigarette clenched tight as his Death Magic burned his own soul as fuel, overwriting reality faster than Malevolent could destroy it, every step agonising like inhaling tiny shards of broken glass with every breath that he took on his march toward beating the Serpent to a pulp!

But he didn't stop.

"Stay back!" Malevolent howled, stumbling backward on legs that were withering. "I am the Cycle! I am Inevitable!"

"I can't beat the shit out of you if I don't close the distance." Silver growled as he lunged, slashing his left dagger across Malevolent’s chest causing black, tar-like blood to be sprayed onto the floor, confirming the mortality of the villain.

Malevolent stared at his wound, touching it with trembling fingers. "Blood? I... I bleed?"

"You bleed," Silver confirmed mockingly, spinning to slash the God’s thigh, severing the hamstring causing Malevolent to collapse to one knee, shrieking in pain. "And you break."

The sensation was new and overwhelming, not to mention terrifying for a being that had existed as a concept for eons.

"NO!" Malevolent panicked, looking around wildly for a solution. "I need... I need a vessel! I need life!"

His rotting eyes locked onto the students cowering behind Ken’s vines.

"Give it to me!"

Malevolent stretched out a hand, his black mist surging past Silver, aiming for Noah, for Tsukihime, for anyone with a pulse.

"Not today!"

A golden whip lashed out, wrapping around Malevolent’s outstretched arm as Ezekiel stood on top of a pile of broken stone, leaning heavily against a piece of rebar, clearly on hs last legs, his body broken, blood pouring from his mouth. But he was smiling.

"Sandman Art..." Ezekiel wheezed "...Quicksand."

The ground beneath Malevolent turned to a swirling vortex of gold dust  which consumed the God who sank up to his waist, trapped in the earth.

"Let me go, Jester!" Malevolent screamed, thrashing in the gold. "I am your friend! I created you!"

Ezekiel laughed. 

"You eat kids, buddy. Even I don't find that funny." Ezekiel whispered, looking at Silver one last time. "Finish it."

Silver didn't need telling twice as he vaulted off a piece of rubble, soaring into the air above the trapped God. He crossed his daggers, channeling every ounce of mana he had left into the blades that glowed with a terrifying, absolute black light, matching the color of a closed casket.

Malevolent looked up and saw the Angel of Death descending, bringing with it a fate that seemed to signal the end of his eternity.

"Wait!" Malevolent begged but Silver had no intentions of doing so as he landed with a brutal force, driving both daggers straight down into Malevolent’s shoulders, pinning the God to the golden earth.

"Appeal denied," Silver roared while Malevolent screamed, pinned by the daggers. But just as the Death mage raised his hand to deliver the final blow, the Serpent surprisingly began to laugh.

"You fool," Malevolent wheezed, black blood leaking from his lips. "Do you think it is that simple? Do you think you can just kill a concept?"

He ushered towards Vanessa who was kneeling nearby, exhausted and bleeding.

"We are binary!" Malevolent shouted. "Light and Shadow! Solace and Malevolent! We are tethered! You cannot destroy the Shadow without extinguishing the Light! One cannot exist without the other!"

Silver froze, his hand hovering over the God’s chest, hesitating to deliver the killing blow.

"You're lying," Silver tried to deny it

"Am I?" Malevolent sneered "Just look at her!" 

Silver looked at Vanessa and he couldn't deny it. She was pale and as Malevolent bled, so did she, a thin line of crimson trickling from her nose, mirroring the God’s injuries.

"So go ahead! Strike me, Death Mage. Crush my heart. And watch her drop dead." Malevolent mocked 

"He's right," Vanessa whispered as she looked at her hands, trembling, fading in and out of existence.

  "The scroll... it said I was the only one who could stop him. I thought it meant my power. But it meant my life."

"No," Silver denied , withdrawing his hand. "We find another way. I promised I'd protect you."

"There is no other way, Silver!"

Vanessa responded, her voice unusually calm. 

"As long as I am the Goddess, he is the God. As long as I am timeless, he is inevitable. The loop never ends!"

Malevolent grinned, sensing Silver’s hesitation which gave him enough time to heal, the black flesh knitting back together.

"See?" Malevolent hissed. "You are weak. Your love is a leash."

Vanessa looked at Silver, observing the pain in his eyes, his tattered breath, the hesitation, the refusal to let her go. She realized that for a century, she had been waiting for someone to save her life. But what she really needed... was someone to save her soul and grant her a final resting place. for someone to take her life!

She needed to be free, 
not just from the cave, 
but from the burden of eternity.

"Silver,"
Vanessa said softly.
"Do you trust me?"

"Vanessa, don't start..."

"I don't want to be a Goddess," she interrupted, her voice gaining strength. "I don't want to rewind time anymore. I want to move forward. I want there to be an ending, even if it's a sad one."

She crawled over to his side and grabbed Silver’s hand, glowing with Death Magic, pulling it away from Malevolent and towards her own chest.

"Vanessa! Stop!" Silver yelled, trying to pull back.

"Sever it," she commanded, her eyes blazing with white fire. "Use your magic. Reject the Causality. Cut the tie between Solace and the Void. Make me human, Silver. Let me die."

Silver looked at her and saw the desperate pleading in her eyes, begging to be free from the curse of immortality. She wanted peace, the right to a natural end.

He looked at Malevolent, who was screaming in panic, realizing what she was doing and after taking a deep, guided breath, Silver’s hand stopped trembling.

"I love you," he whispered.

"I know," she smiled, a single tear escaping her eyes.

She closed them and braced for impact, but Silver didn't stab her. Instead, he drove his hand into the space between the two, into the invisible, magical tether that bound the Goddess to the Monster as the death magic moved between dimensions and towards the unseen.

"Death Art"

Silver roared, tears blinding him.

 "Severance!"