Of Heroes and Villainy

Everything felt like it was going in slow motion. He could see Adiran pull Rinne back to him, despite the pain and blood loss, trying to give her what little comfort he could in their final moments. Elliot had rested his forehead on the cold ground as he cried out in pain at the feeling of Yami dying, and still all Kageo could hear in that moment was his heartbeat.

No, wait, not

his

heartbeat. His was going fast, too fast, and he could feel it against his chest, but the heartbeat he could hear was strong and steady, and right next to him. As he took that in, he realized he could hear others as well. Some were from his friends, like Stella and Walt, and even Elliot, but others were from the guards and Wilhelm. As that realization hit him, he knew what he had to do. He moved his eyes up to Walt, who was being healed by Stella but was finally able to focus enough to see the apology in Kageo's eyes.

Lilith's grip on him was painful and strong, but he didn't need to get out of her grip to do what he needed to do. Wilhelm had turned back to look at Kageo triumphantly, so Kageo said, "Fine, you want a villain? I'll happily give you one then."

Kageo grabbed Lilith by the throat and concentrated all of his power inward. He may not be able to use shadows, but his blood magic was always connected to him deep inside. Before, he had always had to make some sort of cut to get to someone's blood, but he realized now he didn't actually have to do that. He could feel it moving inside of everyone around him, and all he needed to do to get to it was absorb it into him. Lilith's eyes got wide as Kageo drained her of her blood and they stayed that way even in death as she fell to the floor.

Wilhelm gave orders to the guards to stop him, and Kageo stood up and raised his arms towards the guards as they started charging towards him. His eyes glowed red, this time in the irises of his eyes instead of the whites like Walt was used to seeing. The guards stopped, seeming like they were choking on something as the blood was drained from their bodies.

The power that was surging through Kageo's body was more than he had ever felt before. He closed his eyes for a moment, reveling in the feeling, before he extended his healing abilities out towards his family. He placed their insides back where they were meant to be and stitched back together the torn skin before he cleaned and replaced the blood that they had lost.

As soon as the healing was done, Adiran grabbed Rinne and pulled her back behind him, putting himself between her and Wilhelm. Elliot had come forward to pull Yami to him, blocking her with his body from Wilhelm's eyes. Adiran shifted his eyes over to his nephew with worry plain in his expression. With as much power as was traveling through Kageo, nothing Wilhelm could try to do to them would work. He'd just heal them again. Now Adiran was worried that Kageo might be lost to them by the end of this even if the three of them survived.

Kageo could feel the blood lust right under the surface, telling him to get more blood, to drink it down and use his power to find more, but he fought it off. It was painful to fight against what the blood poisoning was telling him to do, but he did it anyway. All of this would be for nought if the people he loved didn't get out of this alive. His eyes had stopped glowing, but they were now a permanent shade of blood red, and his hair was starting to change from the deep black it normally was to gaining streaks of blood red.

His veins stood out against his pale skin now, looking a deep blue in color and getting darker along his arms and neck. His cuts from Wilhelm's lashing had healed but the tattered strands of his shirt sleeves did nothing to hide the signs of blood poisoning on his skin. His canines looked sharper and more defined as he smiled at Wilhelm, the smile dangerous and promising violence.

"You signed your own death warrant," Wilhelm told him.

"I signed yours too," Kageo replied. "So long as you go down, my death won't be for nothing!"

Wilhelm grinned wickedly and unleashed a torrent of magical attacks. It was as if his power was amplified in this place while Kageo's and anyone else's was dimmed. Wilhelm must be aware of the power disparity because he had been operating the entire time as if he had the high ground but he was vastly underestimating the amount of power at Kageo's disposal right now. Wilhelm had heard that the effects of blood poisoning were immediate and degenerative, but he had not done any research into the subject beyond learning how to trigger it. The Blackwood family had generations of experience passed down from parents to children that made them much better informed.

So long as the person with blood poisoning continued to fight and search for more blood to take in, the blood magic user was stronger and more immune to regular magical attacks. They could heal fast, they seemed almost invincible, and they could destroy whole cities if they got enough blood in them. It was the fighting against the blood poisoning that made it go faster towards death. Kageo would have to take in the blood of an entire city, like all of Thyllport, for it to finally kill him if he wasn't fighting against the effects.

By fighting Wilhelm, it was holding off the worst of the effects. The veins along his arms, neck, and now chest were darkening to a black color, and his hair had gained more red to it. Even with the room dampening his powers, the blood poisoning was stronger than that.

Walt watched with dawning horror as his mind knit itself back together under his sister's skilled healing. The spells that Wilhelm was throwing at Kageo were powerful and, in some cases, illegal. The more lethal attacks Wilhelm aimed at Kageo had long been outlawed whether overtly or covertly used but Kageo was turning them aside or absorbing them with ease. He found while he watched that he was torn between the combatants. He had been prepared to do what it took to see Kageo and the Blackwoods safe from Wilhelm, and he still was, but the man

was

his father.

Walt looked beyond the battle raging in front of him, tracing the lines of the cleverly hidden spell form that had been laid into the very foundation of the estate. There was a component of blood magic to it that was all but invisible to Walt's magesight, but he found that with so much power flooding Kageo from the blood he had absorbed and the amplification that Walt himself received from the spell, he could make out the edges of it.

"Is that all you've got, Willy?" Kageo taunted, the way he spoke sending a chill down Walt's spine because it sounded so unlike him. "You don't seem to be doing much damage."

Finally, Stella released Walt's head, though she kept her hand on his shoulder for a moment. "Mom..." she said, hesitating, but then deciding it had to be done: "She's gone, Walt. He killed her."

Walt whipped his head around and searched Stella's face, desperate for her to be lying. He then looked behind her to Dierdre's body on the floor where it had fallen. Her skin was a sickly pallor now and she was laying in an odd position, one that showed that her back and neck were likely broken. Walt saw red at that moment. He knew instinctively who was to blame for her death and he stood calmly, his rage focused on a single goal.

"Kageo, get everyone out of here," Walt said with deadly calm as he advanced on Wilhelm. "There's nothing left here but death."

Wilhelm immediately stopped attacking Kageo as he turned to look at his oldest child and Heir, his face twisting with contempt and disgust. Elliot took the opportunity to usher Stella and Yami over to Adiran as Wilhelm began unleashing attack after attack on Walt.

Kageo had turned wide, red eyes on Walt, the irises glowing for a moment as he fought against the blood lust in his head. He could just manage to catch how serious Walt was about this. Walt heard him let out a hiss of pain as he turned away from what he had been doing, ushering the others to the other side of the room, back toward the door.

"Kageo," Adiran said to him once he got over to them, but Kageo just shook his head and looked closely at the spells interwoven through the room. Unlike Walt, he

could

see the blood magic perfectly, and his pained expression turned into an almost gleeful smile when he realized what that meant.

Feed, feed, feed

, the voices in his head were saying, and he agreed this time. He pressed his hands onto the cold metal of the door, and started to pull out every drop of the blood magic within the spellwork. It was older work, done a long time ago, so it didn't quench the thirst in any way, but it did take the edge off. Without that interwoven into it, it made the rest of the spellwork easier to destroy, especially as hopped up on blood as Kageo was right then. It was a little like cutting through soft butter, and the hiss of the spell dying felt viscerally good to him.

He practically ripped the doors off their hinges, sending them flying back to where Lilith's body was. He turned back to the others and rasped out, "Run!"

Yami looked like she was going to argue, but Adiran grabbed her and pushed her through the doors. The others followed while Kageo turned back to see what was going on with Walt and his father. He was considering coming back into the fight but then his eyes fell on Deirdre's body. Through the haze of the blood lust, he recognized that Walt would want her safe, so she could be buried later. For a brief moment, his eyes flickered color, but then they returned back to red. He let out a grunt and ran over to where Deirdre was and pulled her up into his arms.

He went back over to the door and stopped again, looking back at his love. "Walt!"

Walt looked over at him, easily deflecting or absorbing the attacks Wilhelm was beginning to throw at him in desperation now. The expression on Kageo's face said that he didn't want to leave Walt here alone, especially not with as worked up as Wilhelm was. When Walt didn't seem inclined to leave, Kageo said, "Take her, and I'll finish what I started here."

Walt shook his head, a study in minimalist effort as it was a single motion left and a single motion to the right. "I love you, but this is mine to finish," he said quietly. "Besides, I've already begun the process, and you won't be able to leave soon. And

I

need

you

to get out of here." Walt tapped the stone in his pocket meaningfully.

As soon as Kageo realized what Walt was talking about, he gave a quick nod that he understood and turned to run. It was a little more cumbersome to do with Deirdre in his arms, but he had added strength and speed on his side right then. It didn't take him too long to catch up to the others, and seeing him made them run all the faster. As soon as they got past the walls of the estate, Adiran stopped them and pulled them all into a group holding hands. He put his hands on his children's shoulders and they all teleported back to the Blackwood Estate there in the Capital.

Adiran motioned for everyone to go inside, and Kageo gently laid Deirdre down on one of the couches. Once he had done that, Kageo found a chair to sit down in and try to calm down. His hands were shaking now as he fought against the blood poisoning. His hair was completely blood red, and he pulled at the ripped parts of his shirt until he could pull it off. It felt like it was suffocating him.

He forced himself to focus on pulling the gem out that Walt had given him, praying that he would see Walt here safely soon. He needed Walt safe and alive, even if he'd have to deal with now being an orphan. Kageo's heart ached at that idea, never having wanted that for his love, but he couldn't focus on it long.

Walt hadn't been lying about having already started the process. He had been careful at the Academy to place limits on his gravity manipulation for fear of doing irreparable damage but his mind was crystal clear and focused in this moment. He had concentrated on a place within Wilhelm that he doubted still existed in the metaphorical sense: his heart. Walt created a localized spot the size of a single atom where he focused all of his gravity magic until he felt it take on a life of its own. And it was

hungry

.

Wilhelm looked on as his son casually blocked his deadliest spells in growing fear as he wondered what Astrophel was doing. He never felt the end of his life. He saw Walt reach into his pocket and disappear and then he was dead as the singularity Walt had created inside his body crushed him into a particle-sized space and converted his entire mass into energy in an instant.

What no one got to see, at least not until later when the damage was surveyed, was how the entire Whitmore estate was destroyed by that singularity before it eventually dissipated and disappeared, leaving a crater where the once lavish estate had been.

Kageo was out of his seat as soon as he saw Walt appear in front of him and threw himself into Walt's arms, knocking the both of them off their feet and onto the floor. Kageo checked every inch of Walt that he could right then, making sure he was safe and unharmed. He even used his blood magic to look for any cuts, and every single one he found he healed immediately.

"I'm so sorry," Kageo cried out, talking to both Walt and Stella. "I should have hidden our bond on my side too. None of this would have happened, your mom would still be alive. I shouldn't have brought you into this. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"

Walt shushed him gently and attempted to calm his love down. He could feel Kageo's agitation and bloodlust through the bond and he knew that it was reaching unsafe levels now that there wasn't any conflict to feed the affliction. Kageo let out a cry and fell back onto the floor on his back, his body shaking as he grabbed onto his own arms with his hands to try and make the creeping feeling in his veins stop.

"You have to go," Kageo cried out to everyone. "You have to leave or you have to kill me!"

Walt smiled gently and patted Kageo on the head, saying, "You're cute, honey. I'll not be abandoning the family I have left on the day I became an orphan."

He could feel through the bond that Kageo was holding tightly to the blood magic. Probably in an effort to control it, but that was the exact problem. He pulled a bit of the excess energy into himself and grounded it using his magic while looking to the remaining Blackwoods for help. "Uncle Adiran, do you think you and the others can help him?"

"Good idea," Adiran said, and he motioned for the others to join him. He knelt down next to Kageo, taking one of his hands, while Yami came over on the other side and took his other hand. Rinne knelt down by his head and put her hands on his shoulders. They could all feel the blood magic coursing through him, poisoning him and telling him to give into more of it.

"You have to let go, Kageo," Adiran told him. "You need to purposely release it."

That was easier said than done, Kageo thought, but he could feel the truth in it. He could feel Walt's hands on his legs, rubbing against the fabric there to try and calm him some. He felt more hands join the others, though he lost track of who was helping. Only the Blackwoods were shifting the blood magic but the others were trying to help ground him in reality.

The voices and blood lust fought against what they were trying to do, making Kageo thrash around, but his friends and family didn't let that deter them. He only became still when he felt extra power coming from beyond them. He remembered how he had seen his parents protecting Yami from the curse, and realized what this extra energy helping him was. He laid back against the floor, looking up at the spectral faces of his parents, and Deirdre.

His body relaxed back, and he told the voices in his head no. No more. No more power, no more blood. He didn't want it. He wanted to live, to live his life with Walt, and see what the future held for them together. All of that blood he had taken in bubbled back up, and then he lurched forward away from everyone, crawling out of their grasp across the wooden floor where he started to throw up. There was no food or drink that came out. It was all pure blood; deep red and thick.

Only once he got everything out did he fall back to the floor, feeling drained and out of it. Half of his body landed in the blood while the other half was just on the cool hardwood. His hair had gone back to being mostly black again, though there were streaks of red left over that looked like they may never go back to normal. His eyes had darkened again, but when Walt looked into them, he could see remnants of deep red streaked through the iris. The veins still stood out against his skin but they were lightening more every minute as the others watched.

Walt stood and walked over to Kageo, picking him up gently and looking to Adiran for directions to a place to clean him up. Adiran pointed down a hallway and Walt made his way carefully through the house until he found the master bedroom. He carried Kageo through the room and into the adjoining bathroom, kicking the door shut before laying his love into the large garden tub. He marveled that Kageo felt so light right now, but put that from his mind as he stripped off the bloody clothes and ensured Kageo's head would be above water before turning the faucet on and adjusting the temperature.

Kageo let out a little gasp at the feeling of the water, his eyes focusing on Walt for a brief moment before the water felt warmer. "Walt," he breathed out, but didn't seem to have much else to say. His eyes unfocused again but Walt could tell Kageo was more aware of his presence now despite his mind still drifting back and forth.

Walt got Kageo cleaned up and the tub drained before draping a large towel over him. When Walt tried to pick him up, Kageo attempted to assist him as much as he could. Walt got him into the bed and under the covers, assuming that getting him dressed would be a lot more effort than either of them could manage right then. While he was tidying up the room, Adiran knocked softly and entered, looking for his nephew and spotting him tucked into the bed and sleeping soundly, his wet hair unbraided and laid out on the pillow to dry.

"How are you holding up?" Adiran asked Walt quietly, though he knew nothing would likely wake Kageo right then.

Walt smiled briefly in thanks for the quiet tone, though the expression didn't really reflect in his eyes. "I haven't given myself permission to feel anything yet," he reported to Adiran. "I suppose there is a lot of work coming up to restore the Council to its rightful purpose and consolidate my position as Lord Whitmore, but none of that could possibly matter if I lost him."

Adiran looked over at his nephew again, a small smile on his face though much like Walt's, it didn't quite get to Adiran's eyes. "I always worried about whether Kageo would get to find love, what with everything else on his shoulders. I'm glad it's you though. There will be a lot to figure out come tomorrow, but you have us behind you as well. You might have lost a lot tonight, but I'd like you to also know you've gained a lot too. Consider his sisters yours as well, and me your uncle, or father figure, whichever you wish me to be."

Walt nodded somberly, beginning to tear up at Adiran's sweet words. "Thank you, that means a lot to me," he responded. "Is there somewhere that I can get some rest?"

Adiran nodded at that. "I could get a room set up for you, but of course, I'm sure Kageo would want you in here with him. It's up to you which you'd prefer."

Walt acknowledged that with a small bow. "I wasn't sure what decorum would require and did not wish to make anyone uncomfortable," he explained. "I'll gladly stay with him."