The Custodes

Chapter 41 - The End Of All Things

Neo laid Kayla's body softly down on the ground, his endless stream of tears slowly drying to a halt. He wasn't quite sure what he wanted to feel at that moment. Rage, grief, maybe even numbness - but instead of one in particular rising to the surface, they all seemed to churn as one inside him. 

His heart was broken, and he knew deep down that it would never be healed. It was a pain too severe to bring to words, a loss of something pure that he would never - could never - re-attain. But in that pain was something else. Something powerful.

Resolve. 

Without Kayla, he knew he would never again be who he was. There was no going back, no more rewinding the clocks. Everything mattered a million times more now.

It was not a time to be lost. 

He would grieve, yes. He would be broken, too. It would take time to come back; Neo wasn't even sure if he could come back. But all of that could wait. He knew he had to offset it, or he would never finish this fight. 

Zuro would use it against him. He would say something; taunt him, laugh at him, pity him. If there was even the slightest crack in Neo's mindset, Zuro would find it, expose it and use it to further his chances of winning. He could not let it happen.

Neo could feel his anger there, like an animal lying in wait at the end of a cave, but with the resolve that flourished amidst the ocean of pain, he was able to seal that cave off - abandoning his anger behind it. 

Nexus' words rang in his ears. His anger made him predictable. If that's what was holding him back, Neo would cast it aside there and then - leave it here with Kayla where the past no longer mattered. The present was everything. 

Neo brought his hand up in front of his face, watching as the skin there began tearing away. Strip by strip it left him, being replaced by a deep, endless streak of darkness. Soon enough his whole hand was covered, moving wispily through the air as he waved it in front of him. 

And like a snake lashing out in vicious hostility, the darkness flooded the rest of him - taking his flesh by force and leaving nothing as it was. Neo stood, his eyes swirling like an abyss as misty black flames covered him entirely. He felt solid and miscible at the same time; real yet unreal. 

The power that flooded him was a familiar sensation, and he knew right away that it was the very one Zuro had been dying to see. It seemed he would finally get his wish.  

Just as he was about to leave, Neo took one final look back at Kayla. Her eerie stillness struck him deep within, but all it served to do was remind Neo he was still himself underneath his shadowy form and frozen emotions. "I will be back." He said in a tone so deep and grave that he hardly recognised it as his own "I promise."

The flames around him flickered, preparing to move to the surface of the building once more, when Neo caught a reflection of light from his peripheral and spun his head towards it. His abyssal eyes widened as his gaze fell on the weapon before him - Kayla's sword, laying useless and inactivated; as still as she herself was.

Before he knew it he was crossing to the pile of rubble atop of which it lay, his shadow coated hand reaching timidly out towards it. He paused, doubt-filled uncertainty halting him for a moment, until his newfound calmness washed over in a fresh wave, and he stubbornly grabbed the hilt of the blade and raised it up in front of him. 

A rainbow of colours burst forth in the exact same manner as when Kayla had first activated it. The weapon felt lighter in his grip, molded to his fingers more snugly as he swished it around his wrist once, then again the opposite way. He changed its form a few times, cycling through all the different weapons it could turn into, then settled on a one-handed blade the exact same length as Zuro's Staelic sword.