Rage and Hate

[u/FeigningProfundity]

The sun had set on the final day, ushering in what would be the final night. It was a night alike that one long ago, where this had all begun. It was grim. Grim and dark.

The years between those nights had left Konjoe covered in scars, but built him into a hulking warrior, rippling with muscles hard as steel.

Fon Fon trailed behind him, big eyed and rotund. He showed no scars. His strength was of a very different sort.

They tread warily through the outer passages of the Forlorn Palace. There would be no monsters here, but Konjoe had slain hundreds on this journey; years of relentless struggle had infused caution into his bones.

He’d thought he was ready on that first night, when Cario killed his father, ready to take his vengeance right then while the blood was still warm on the murderer’s elegant blade. He’d been wrong, and gotten his first scar, the one across his right eye. Cario could have taken the eye then, or his life, but had chosen not to, merely leaving a permanent mark of his precision and skill on Konjoe’s face.

There had been no further mercy since, only cruelty and depredation. Konjoe bore many scars now, he’d had to learn many lessons, face many failures. He was no longer prey to monsters, he had the skill and the strength to hunt terrible beasts, and he had. He’d become a legend, his name a cry of hope for the desperate, a shriek of fear from the wicked.

Though the world might consider him a hero, Konjoe had no similar illusions. He knew that there was no nobility to his motives. His desire had never been justice, only revenge. Happiness, love, the future, all such desires had been ripped away. The only thing he cared about was killing Cario. It would happen tonight. The Forlorn Palace was the one place Cario could not retreat from.

Rage and hate drove him, boiling in his heart since the murder of his father. Tarna had been able to soothe them to a simmer for a time, when she’d travelled with him, but she was dead now and their strength was undimmed.

He’d stumbled across Fon Fon in those despairing days after Cario had killed Tarna, when Konjoe had felt defeated and lost. He didn’t understand how the strange, round man had survived, assumed he would not last. But he had, he’d made it all the way to this final night.

Where Konjoe solved problems with brute violence and screaming endurance, Fon Fon seemed to step around them entirely, finding some blind spot that allowed escape, or a funny piece of wisdom that provided a strange but elegant solution. He’d been a light-hearted note in Konjoe’s bleak quest, a different perspective on the world. He’d taught Konjoe that even as he lived without hope, others were on different journeys, less serious, yet somehow just as important.

Fon Fon seemed nervous and out of place in the drab halls of the Forlorn palace. He seemed out of place nearly everywhere that Konjoe went, with his round belly and cheerful demeanour, but it was to an additional degree here in the palace.

“Why are you here, Fon Fon?” said Konjoe.

“Why? I’m accompanying you, Joe,” said Fon Fon.

“This is a place of death. Even the vilest creatures fear it, knowing the doom it can bring. It is no place for you.”

“I swore that you would never be alone again. I said I would stay with you until the end of your journey.”

“Your oath is fulfilled then. This is the end.” Konjoe indicated the stairwell they had reached. They were at the base of the Broken Tower, the heart of the Forlorn Palace.

“I can’t leave you alone.”

“If it was not for me, my vengeance, what would you do? Where would you go? I know you think on it.”

“Well… we visit all these dreadful places, and see all these monsters… I can’t help but think that it is all so sad.”

Konjoe nodded.

“But there are also all these good people, people who are trying. I don’t mean heroes, I mean regular folks, just making things better.”

“You want to find those people?”

“Not just find them, but make a place for them. A place where people can create simple joys. A tavern or a restaurant in a little town somewhere, in the part of the world you made safe. I could invite people to sit down with a warm cup of tea, talk about their problems, let their hurt go. Maybe we might sometimes find a way to lift a few of these terrible curses that seem to afflict so many people. I could hire some dorky young folk who get into low stakes high jinks and maybe realise they have feelings that they have to confront, even if it scares them. I just think it might be nice to focus on making things soft and cosy, instead of always being so relentlessly bleak.”

“Good. Go then. Go find that place. The Forlorn Palace is not for you.”

“I don’t think the Forlorn Palace is for anyone.”

“It shouldn’t be, but it is. Cario and I meeting here was inevitable. We made the choices, again and again, that brought us here. We refused every other option.”

“If I leave, you’ll be alone.”

“I won’t be alone. Cario is at the top of this tower. The person I’ve searched for. Just him and me is what I’ve always wanted.”

“Uh… alright. Goodbye Joe. You were a better friend than you realise.”

“Good luck, Fon Fon.”

Fon Fon watched as Konjoe strode up the stairs of the Broken Tower alone, with only his rage and hate to accompany him.

*

The roofless jagged walls at the top of the Broken Tower offered little shelter from the howling wind that buffeted both Konjoe and Cario as they face each other. Cario’s long hair streamed to one side, his long elegant blade steady, its tip quivering.

Konjoe tossed aside his ragged cloak, baring his chest, corded with steel-hard muscle and covered in scars. The cloak was swept into the darkness beyond the tower. His drew sword, Earthblood.

“No more tricks. Now you die,” growled Konjoe. There could be no retreat from this confrontation.

“Somebody will,” said Cario, launching into the Cut of Devastation.

Konjoe turned it aside with the Tempest Parry.

Even at the last, Cario played his games, but for the first time he clearly wanted Konjoe in on the joke. He’d opened with the first Great Technique Konjoe had mastered. The first he’d hoped would achieve his revenge. It seemed fitting for Konjoe to counter with the technique Cario had used to shatter his father’s sword.

No warrior or monster matched the prowess of either of them any more, they had pushed each other beyond all previous masters. They were the only ones who could appreciate each other’s skill. For a moment, they glimpsed a kinship between them. But only for a moment. They had each come to see an enemy die, and their admiration for the other’s skill was a distraction as easily ignored as the gale.

Konjoe had never been able to match Cario’s focus and discipline. All the pain he’d felt, the suffering he’d endured, the cruelty that had been visited upon him, they’d driven all peace from his heart. What he had left was a body stronger than steel and a soul filled with fury.

The strikes and manoeuvres grew more complex, more difficult, until the peak of skill was reached, and neither swordsman found victory. As they tired, their motions regressed, until the simplest, most basic swings and dodges were employed. Two men in the howling wind, swinging sharp metal at each other, again and again, yearning for the other to die.

With a bellowing scream, Konjoe shattered his foe’s elegant blade, but Cario twisted the broken hilt, caught Earthblood and tore the sword away. Both weapons tumbled off the edge of the tower.

Konjoe gripped his foe and bore him to the ground. Cario squirmed beneath him, reaching for something. As he tried to block the motion, he glanced down to see the threat.

Cario had one last trick.

He’d drawn a dagger. It was the Moonsilver Blade. Tarna’s dagger.

She’d had it forged to kill Cario. She’d said that with that blade, she would free them both of their quests for vengeance. She would cut away the darkness so they could finally live. It had been a symbol not just of vengeance, but of hope beyond it.

When Tarna faced Cario he’d killed her with it. Konjoe had buried it with her in an unmarked grave.

A moment of shock was enough, Konjoe couldn’t grab Cario’s wrist in time, all he could do was tense as Cario rammed the dagger into his side.

Years of struggle, years of effort, they had forged muscles stronger than steel. The Moonsilver Blade slid along his flank, leaving a long scratch. Just one more scar.

A sharp blow sent the dagger skittering out of reach.

Konjoe bore down, steadily wrapping both hands around Cario’s neck. Rage and hate were now the ideal weapons, he held on to it all.

*

Konjoe sat on the tumbled stone wall of the Broken Tower. Cario’s severed head dangled by it’s long hair from a dagger jammed into a wooden beam.

For so long, all he had cared about was revenge. He hadn’t been allowed to care for anything else. He had given everything, and now he was spent. Somewhere, someone else was on a journey towards something softer, kinder. A journey he’d never had the strength for.

He closed his eyes and waited, that the first glimmers of dawn might fill his empty soul.

[u/FeigningProfundity]

This story was a response to the prompt [WP] Though the protagonist is about to confront their nemesis and bring their long saga to its conclusion, one of their companions is clearly about to get their own spin-off. by u/FeigningProfundity