[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/r7X1Gjm.png[/img]
[h2][b]Cerzelium Orchelas[/b][/h2]
[i]Outside Apartment Workshop, Core District[/i]
[@Phonic][/center] 
[hr]
...killed someone. 

He had killed someone. 

It had been that easy? 

No, not easy. He had called upon the might of the Orchelas's god. He would not call it 'easy', that was both a disgrace to the god, and to the poor man who had fallen. He could not call it that when he had grazed so close to death. If the opponent was stronger, more prepared, or more meticulous, he would likely be the one dead. 

Not easy, then, but 'simple'. He had thought killing would be [b]more[/b]. He had half expected his heart to give out, his mind to go white, his soul to strain to a point of breaking, but there was none of that. Save for the guilt that he carried of having taken a life, he felt no different than he had moments earlier. 

The thought terrified him. What he had done was surely evil, and if others could kill just as easily, that was a nightmare like no other. Was there no justice in this world? A world where one could commit evil so casually, it was hardly a wonder that there were those steeped in evil, those who hurt others for their own benefit, those who killed. 

...but, was he really any better now? He had just killed someone. The enemy magus, regardless of that they had tried to kill him first, had been another person. They too had dreams, aspirations, loved ones, and he had snuffed that all out. That person's smile would never again grace the world. He had killed someone for his own benefit, so-

He forced that feeling down. He swallowed that utter revulsion. Yes, even though an Orchelas cannot be evil, he had absolved himself to commit evil. 

For the sake of his family. For the sake of the ones who came before and the ones who will come after, he would stain his hands with evil.

"I'm sorry. I pray that you find peace in whatever world may come after."

He would not denigrate the dead, but nor could he afford to hesitate now. If he allowed himself to break merely from this, then that would be all. That would be a disgrace to the man he had killed. For the sake of uplifting his family, for the sake of the Orchelas reaching Enlightenment, for the sake of seeing his children cast off all their evils before age caused his own soul to rot and his mind to fall apart, he would not hesitate.

He had been careless. That heartfelt offer, that request that the other not participate in the battle, had been nothing short of genuine. Cerzelium truly had no intention of fighting, for doing that risked that he would take a life. 

...how foolish.

Had he not known that doing so against a magus was suicide? That was an invitation to the enemy to prepare their strongest attack to bring him down in a single blow. In this very battle, his kindness was used as a dagger to be pointed at his own throat. Kindness? No, cowardice, his hesitance and weakness to commit evil had nearly been his undoing. He had nearly died because of his weakness.

So, he would bury that weakness down. He would encase it in layer after layer of resolve. He would seal away his hesitation, his cowardice, his desire for a happy ending, because in death this man had taught him a valuable lesson. Those thoughts had no place in a carnival of evil such as this.

[i]"...my friend, let us depart."[/i]

In that moment, he resolved himself.

Cerzelium Orchelas will turn his mind to steel, and acquire the Holy Grail.