Chapter 282: Kill Them?

"I won’t be able to kill her," he said simply no hesitation no struggle.

"She’s stronger than me."

He said it casually.

But Tongue... Tongue didn’t look satisfied at all.

"I am asking will you kill her or no?" Tongue repeated but she didn’t even get to finish her sentence.

Because the dagger in Razeal’s hand moved too fast.

One moment it was hanging loosely in his fingers, the next..

shhk

It appeared buried deep into Celestia’s chest.

Right where her heart was supposed to be.

No hesitation.

No dramatic pause.

No trembling hand.

Just a clean, cold, emotionless strike.

Blood slowly began dripping down her pristine white dress. Her platinum lashes fluttered once..

then her eyes rolled back, turning pure white as her whole body went limp.

A faint, dull thud echoed as she collapsed backward.

Her body hit the cosmic floor.. lifeless jnmoving.. Just a corpse now.

Tongue turned her gaze back to Razeal immediately.. almost excited, like she loved what she just saw.

Razeal, meanwhile, simply lowered his arm. No expression on his face. no regret no disgust not even satisfaction.

Just cold emptiness.

He pulled his hand back and leaned against the cosmic couch again, arms folding. Then he met Tongue’s stare straight on as if silently asking through his dead-serious crimson eyes:

"Anything else?"

Tongue let out a low, amused chuckle. "You... were able to do this because you knew she wasn’t real. Right?"

She licked her lips lightly while watching him her expression half curious, half entertained, like she was examining some rare creature.

Razeal didn’t answer. Not yes or no.

He just sat back, leaning deeper into the strange galaxy-made couch. Silent emotionless just staring at her without blinking.

Tongue tilted her head slightly, still watching him. Then she repeated herself with a lower, more intentional voice:

"Let me ask you again. Will you... kill your mother, your sister, Selena, and Celestia? Answer me. Don’t dodge the question. Be honest to yourself."

The question landed like a hammer.

Razeal suddenly exhaled sharply and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. His fingers brushed across his face in mild frustration.

"You know..." he muttered, staring directly at her with a dangerous glint, "Right now I feel like I want to kill you."

His voice lowered quiet, cold, and almost threatening. Not loud not explosive just deadly calm.

"Like really, really bad."

Tongue didn’t flinch not even a twitch.

She simply smiled.

"And you know you can’t," she said, almost cheerfully. "So how about you be a good boy and just answer the question? Because all I see right now is a boy trying to run away from one. single. question."

She leaned forward as she spoke, her eyes narrowing slightly, teasing him but observing him at the same time.

Razeal felt her words hit something inside him again.. that stupid vampire heightened emotional core again.. he sighed again.

He didn’t want to admit anything. He didn’t want to participate in this ridiculous therapy session. He didn’t even want to feel cornered by someone who could rewrite reality with a word.

But still...

He breathed in

slowly

controlling himself.

"Alright." He finally spoke, voice lower and steadier.

"Fine."

He exhaled through his nose.

"No, I won’t." His eyes dropped slightly to the table before meeting hers again. "I don’t want to kill them."

His voice was honest. Cold empty but honest.

"Yeah... I hate them. But... no. I don’t want to kill them. I just want my life to be away from them."

As he finished saying it, he looked away again like he couldn’t stand making eye contact during such words.

Tongue chuckled, delighted. "Ohhh I am loving thissss!!"

Her whole face lit up she looked like she was enjoying this far more than she should.

But quickly she coughed lightly, forcing herself back into her fake "serious therapist" mode.

She straightened her back and asked again, voice returning to calm seriousness: "So... you still have feelings for them? I presume?"

Razeal’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t even blink.

"No," he said plainly. "I hate them." There was no tremor in his voice. No crack just flat truth.

Tongue watched him carefully, her cosmic eyes reflecting little shifting stars. "Well, that I can see," she said.

Then she leaned forward again, her chin resting in her palm. "So... will you forgive them?"

"No."

Razeal answered instantly.

A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his lips

a cruel, unbothered, icy smirk. He didn’t even try to hide it.

He would never forgive them.

Tongue’s smile widened a little, clearly intrigued. She tapped one finger thoughtfully on the table.

"What would it take to forgive them?" she asked slowly. "Anything? Anything at all? Something that might be worth enough?"

Razeal didn’t even need to think.

He shook his head immediately.

"Some things can’t be redeemed. No matter what. And this... is one of them." His voice held an eerie calmness, as if he was stating simple mathematical fact. "I will never forgive them. I hate them. And that’s it."

He wasn’t shouting trembling or wasn’t even letting vampire emotions take over.

He was calm.. Completely calm.

So much that It felt strange even to him.. because only minutes ago he had been shaking, losing control, drowning in amplified feelings.

Now he felt almost... controlled.

He noticed it.

Is it because he wasn’t holding anything back? Because he wasn’t resisting? Because he wasn’t trying to hide how he felt or pretend he didn’t feel?

Was that why?

He wasn’t sure.

But the calmness was real.

Tongue nodded slowly, summarizing it with a teacher-like tone:

"So, in simple words... You loved them yhey betrayed you. You hate them and you want revenge, but not enough to kill them. And there is no path no possibility at all for forgiveness or redemption. Even if they did everything. Even if they begged. Even if the whole universe shifted."

She tilted her head, studying him deeply.

"Is that right

Razeal heard her words... and couldn’t stop his eyes from drifting to the side. Even he deep down felt a stupid sting inside his chest. Not emotional pain, not sadness, but that irritating awareness that he himself was... contradictory.

He hated them. He wanted revenge. He wanted to cut every connection tying him to them.

Yet when it came to the final step.. the last line. The part where all the hatred should transform into killing intent...

He couldn’t.

He knew it.

He hated that he knew it.

He hated that it was true.

And sitting there, calm expression but a storm underneath, he couldn’t help thinking:

Why am I like this? Why do I stop halfway? Why can’t I just go all the way? Why do I hesitate? Why am I weak?

But the answer never came. Not now not ever.

Every time he tried to force himself to think, "I should kill them," the thought always collapsed into the same blank refusal:

No.

Not because he forgave them or loved them or even because that he wanted them.. No

Just... no.

He didn’t know why.

Maybe it was that small buried truth in all humans or whatever he was now that killing the people you once loved is something no one can do without breaking something inside themselves permanently.

Maybe it was because even if you hate someone with your entire being, there is still a reluctant corner inside you that doesn’t want to cross that line, because that line changes who you are forever.

Maybe it was because killing them felt exhausting needless and Complicated.

He didn’t want to be dragged into the emotional mess of killing them. He didn’t want to deal with whatever came after. He didn’t want to bother his own mind with consequences he didn’t see the point of living with.

He wanted revenge.. but not that kind of revenge.

Make them regret make them suffer. Make them choke on the consequences.

But not kill.

Even he didn’t know why. He just knew it.

He sat there quietly, face empty, posture relaxed, no flicker of emotion showing on him but inside his thoughts spun quietly in circles.

Tongue watched him. Her cosmic eyes seemed to see through everything, and she rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

"Then why don’t you want to face them?" she asked softly. "You don’t even want to talk to them. You don’t want to prove them wrong.

You didn’t even want to hear why Celestia or Selena did what they did."

Her voice was steady and annoyingly analytical.

"What is that going to do?" Razeal said with a shake of his head, his tone flat. "That is just a wasteful thing to do. I don’t care."

Tongue narrowed her eyes a little.

"Or maybe..." she said slowly, "you’re scared of their answers."

Razeal’s eyes flickered for a second it was barely visible, but it was there.

"That maybe what they say will be... hurtful," she continued. "Or maybe you don’t want to ask because you’re afraid you’ll look too emotional, and you hate that."

Razeal stared at her, expression blank. "What are you trying to say?"

Tongue didn’t stop.

"I mean... when Celestia wanted to tell you the reason..." Tongue continued, her voice slowing down as if she was picking apart each word, examining it, tilting it in her hand like a strange jewel. "You were very disappointed. And more hurt by it than you want to admit. Before that, you didn’t even have the answer to why she did that. And maybe.. just maybe you were expecting something bigger. Something more dramatic, more meaningful, more... redeemable."

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing thoughtfully as she studied his face.

"Maybe you already knew it was them, deep down somewhere," she added. "But you didn’t want to see the proof. You didn’t want to hear it from her mouth. You didn’t want confirmation that what they did... was exactly what they wanted to do."

Razeal stayed silent. Completely still.

"Of course that would make... anyone feel bad. afterall no one would wanna hear words like that. ’you weren’t deserving enough, so I did that,’" he muttered, voice low and strangely flat. "Because it was true. After all."

"So is that why you don’t want to know why Selena did what she did?" she pressed, leaning a bit closer across the cosmic table. "You’re just trying to run away from the truth? Thinking that maybe the real answer might be even more hurtful than what you’ve already imagined? Because you had false expectations big ones and part of you still wants to think there was a good reason behind it?"

She raised her hand and tapped her temple.

"You think about it all the time," she said. "Millions of thoughts.. always circling, always returning to the same question. Even now you think about it, don’t you? Why she did it. Why her. Why them."

Razeal’s lips twitched. He looked irritated, but not because she was wrong rather because she was too right.

"I don’t," he finally said. "Because it’s going to change nothing. Knowing won’t change anything. Hearing the reason won’t undo it. And more than that... I’ll look like an idiot who can’t even control his emotions."

"This is useless," he said, trying to sound dismissive. "Completely useless."

"Hmmm... let’s put this aside for now." Tongue rubbed her chin slowly, her expression turning thoughtful in that strange way she had like someone flipping through dozens of possibilities at once, each thought painting a different constellation in her eyes.

"How about this..." she continued, leaning slightly forward. "What if they do something again? Something new. Something worse. Let’s say you don’t want to kill them for what they did before... but if they did something bad to you again, right now, would you kill them then? I mean something truly wrong to you... something that crosses every line?"

Her voice held a weird mix of curiosity and amusement, like she wasn’t asking a psychological question but instead watching her favorite drama unfold live.

Razeal didn’t even blink.

"I will," he said.

Just like that no pause no breath and not even a conflict.

His crimson eyes lit up sharply like a blade flashing in dim light showing not rage but certainty. A cold, absolute kind of certainty.

And that was exactly when Tongue suddenly burst into laughter. A full, uncontrollable, loud laugh, head shaking side to side like she couldn’t believe what she just heard.

"Hahaha.. ohh this this is too good!" she said, clutching her stomach. "You know what? I found it. I found your real problem."

Razeal’s expression darkened immediately.

He narrowed his eyes slowly, warningly crossing one leg over the other in a composed, irritated gesture. His gaze sharpened into cold crimson slits.

"You think I’m lying?" he asked, voice dropping dangerously calm. "I meant it."

Tongue waved her hand dismissively, still halfway laughing.

"No, no, not that," she said, breath still uneven from laughing. "What I mean is your biggest problem isn’t what you think. It’s not strength, it’s not revenge, it’s not even the vampires or emotions or whatever other nonsense you complain about."

She leaned back with a dramatic flourish of her hand, still snickering.

"Your biggest problem is... you’re trying to be what you aren’t."

Razeal didn’t move. His eyes just narrowing even further, red deepening, as if sharpening into blades.

Just staring.

Tongue noticed his reaction instantly and that only made her laugh louder, her voice echoing strangely in the star filled space.

"Hahaha.. you are aware of it!" she shouted, pointing at him as if revealing the twist in a story. "You KNOW it too!"

She covered her mouth with one hand, shoulders shaking as the laughter didn’t stop.

Razeal didn’t find it funny. At all.

He sat perfectly still, body unreadable but eyes flashing irritation, confusion, and something else he refused to name.

Tongue eventually slowed her laughter, little gasps still escaping from her smiling mouth.

Then suddenly she stopped completely.

Her expression snapped into seriousness like someone flipped a switch.

Her cosmic eyes sharpened clusters of stars inside them swirling, forming clearer patterns, like galaxies rearranging themselves for a purpose.

She placed both hands firmly on the galactic table and leaned forward.

The atmosphere shifted instantly the joking tone vanished, replaced with something ancient, heavy, vast.

Then Tongue asked:

"Tell me... isn’t it because of that..."

She lifted one finger, pointing directly at him.

"...Because of which you have dark, blank spaces in your memories?"

Her voice dropped lower, almost vibrating through the starry space around them.

She stood up slowly.. leaning across the table,

face nearing his, her gaze deep and endless, clusters of stars reflecting violently in her pupils.

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