"How is that possible?"
The charmcaster's voice was a whisper, his confidence dissolving into soft confusion, into something that might have been fear or might have been the first stirrings of understanding.
When I inspected his charms, I tampered with them. Seeded my own urja into the symbols, into the paper, into the very structure of the spell.
I meant to trigger them, to prove they were unstable, to watch them fail and take him down with them.
He stood in a daze, staring at Ashan's unnervingly calm, smiling face.
But I can't feel the link. The connection is just... gone.
Rokan grew flustered seeing his partner's frozen shock. His hand shot out, grabbing the man's arm, shaking it, trying to pull him back to the moment.
"What's wrong with you?" His voice was sharp and urgent, the voice of a man who had built a plan on a foundation that was crumbling beneath him.
Ashan's eyes dimmed, the usual grayish-white hue fading to a faint glimmer, there and gone, like light reflected off water.
Destroying his parasitic link was like tearing paper.
He plucked one of his own charms from the stall, his fingers finding its edge, its weight, its shape. He shot his arm upward, the motion quick and decisive, the motion of a man who had nothing to hide.
"Observe clearly." His voice cut through the murmurs, through the whispers, through the rising tide of doubt and fear. "Observe."
The paper ignited mid-air, the symbols flaring, the energy releasing, birthing a searing ball of flames that streaked toward the sky, leaving a trail of heat and light, before the high winds caught it, shredded it, and scattered it into nothing.
The crowd, which had been so loud, so certain, so righteous, fell silent.
"That was a solid fireball charm!"
"Right!" Another voice, closer and more certain. "The power matches a properly crafted one."
"I didn't detect any instability."
"A perfectly executed charm!"
The crowd's verdict swung like a pendulum, swinging away from him, toward him, away again. The voices that had been calling for his blood were now singing with praise, their outrage transformed into admiration, their certainty into wonder.
"This... can't be..." Rokan's face soured, the triumph draining from him, leaving something pale and empty in its place. His hands, which had been raised in accusation, fell to his sides. His shoulders, which had been squared with certainty, slumped. He looked smaller now, smaller than he had looked before, smaller than he had ever looked.
Seeing the momentum shift, Ashan did not remain quiet. He stepped forward, his voice rising, taking on a zealous, ringing quality that he had heard in the temple, in the voices of the faithful, in the words of those who knew that they were right and did not need to prove it.
"Brothers and sisters!" He spread his arms, embracing the crowd, the market, the world. "We are all fellow Adharmik Sadhakas of the same Order! Followers of the one true Lord!" His voice rose, filled the space, left no room for doubt. "Yet there is an enemy among us! One who sows discord!"
His hand shot out, his finger pointing squarely at Rokan, at the man who had come to destroy him and was now standing alone, his face pale, his hands empty, his dreams crumbling.
"He is the one who sought to trick you all! To make a mockery of our Lord's mercy and our shared faith!" His voice dropped, becoming cold, righteous, and final. "Such a one must be held to account!"
"He's right!" The voice came from the crowd, from somewhere near the front, from someone who had been watching, waiting, deciding. "Wasting our time and trying to deceive us is a grave offense!"
"Punish him!"
"The audacity!"
"I was on the cusp of a Bodh insight!" Another voice, outraged and indignant. "And he wasted my time with this farce!"
The crowd's ire, so easily directed before, so easily shaped, so easily turned, now swerved toward Rokan with the same ferocity, the same righteousness, the same joy that comes from finding someone who deserves to be torn down and joining in the tearing.
How the tables have turned. Ashan watched, his face still, his eyes bright. How they have turned.
"This isn't true!" Rokan's voice was a scream, straining at the edges, cracking and breaking.
"I'm telling the truth!" His eyes darted across the crowd, looking for someone, anyone, who would believe him, who would stand with him, who would save him.
"You know it's not true, don't you?!" He looked desperately to his partner-in-crime, to the man who had been with him, who had helped him, who had promised to share the blame if it all went wrong.
The charmcaster snorted, a cold and dismissive sound, the sound of a man who had already made his choice and was not about to change it. "What are you babbling about?" He stepped back, away from Rokan, away from the crowd that was pressing closer, away from the future that was rushing toward them both. "I don't know you!" He raised his voice, let it carry, let it reach the farthest edges of the crowd. "Everyone, listen—this man tried to coerce me into framing this talented young craftsman!"
"How can you lie with such a straight face?!" Rokan's eyes boiled with betrayal, with rage, with something that might have been despair. His face, which had been pale, was now ghostly, the color of old parchment, the color of something that had been left in the sun too long.
"Shameless!" The charmcaster spat at Rokan's feet, the gesture theatrical and final. "Still trying to drag me down with you!"
This is for overreaching. He risked a glance at Ashan, at the boy who sat so calmly, so quietly, so still, and found himself met with a mild smile, a smile that held no judgment, no anger, no promise of anything but the moment. I felt the plan crumbling. A quick pivot is the only survival.
This person... is unshaken. He let the thought surface, let it become a decision. I should befriend him. More allies, fewer enemies.
This one acts fast to save his own skin. Ashan watched, his gaze returning to Rokan's crumbling form, to the man who had come to destroy him and was now being destroyed himself. Not bad.
He let the thought settle, let it become something else, something colder, something that was not quite satisfaction and not quite triumph.
My thanks again for the publicity. Now, let's see how rage made manifest behaves.
.....
The crowd's furious cries were a wave, a wall, a weight that pressed down on Rokan from all sides. He stood isolated and alone, his fists clenched so tightly his nails drew blood from his own palms. His head was bowed, his body trembling with escalating violence, with something that was building in him, something that was growing, something that was about to break free.
"Good..." His voice was low, a whisper, a rasp, the first stirrings of something that had been sleeping and was now waking. "Good! Is this how I am to be treated?!"
His voice fractured, becoming something else—a hoarse, guttural rasp, the cry of a ravening beast, the sound of something that had been human and was human no longer.
Something is wrong.
Ashan's analytical calm shattered into immediate alertness. The air around Rokan was warping, growing thick and greasy, pressing against the skin, the lungs, the eyes. It was the air of something that should not be, the air of something that was becoming.
Others felt it too—a primal wrongness that bypassed thought and went straight to something deeper, something older, something that had learned to fear the things that lurked in the dark. They stumbled back from him, their faces pale, their hands raised, their voices silent.
"THEN I CAN ONLY KILL YOU, ASHAN!"
The voice was no longer human. It was a thing of blood-hunger and shattered sanity, a thing that had been waiting, watching, growing, and was now, at last, free.
His facial features twisted, the skin bubbling and stretching, the bones shifting, the shape of him becoming something else, something that had never been human and would never be human again. The transformation was a horror to watch, a slow, grinding, tearing thing that seemed to go on forever, that seemed to pull the air from the lungs and the light from the sky.
He dropped to all fours, clawing at the ground, as a thick, rubbery tail erupted from his spine, whipping through the air, leaving a trail of something that might have been blood or might have been something else.
His hands distorted into savage claws, his mouth distending around a set of elongated, yellowed teeth that seemed to have their own hunger, their own will.
His prana, once controlled, once contained, once the source of his power and his pride, erupted outward in a chaotic, corrupt wave that stank of rot and madness, that pressed against the skin and the lungs and the eyes, that made the world itself seem to recoil.
SCREEEECH!
The sound was a physical assault, thunderous and shredding, ringing in the skulls of all present, making the teeth ache, the bones vibrate, the vision blur.
It was the sound of something that had been sleeping and was now awake, something that had been waiting and was now hungry.
"This isn't [Totem Beast Transformation]!" The voice was high and frightened, the voice of a man who had seen too much and understood too little.
"Of course it isn't, you fool!" Another voice, sharper and more certain.
"He's corrupted! Couldn't handle his power—his prana went chaotic and let the corruption in!"
"Nirsadha!"
The word spread through the crowd, through the market, through the minds of everyone who heard it. "He's become Nirsadha!"
The transformation took only seconds. It felt like hours.
With a final, mindless shriek that seemed to tear the air itself, the corrupted thing that was once Rokan lunged, a blur of claws and fury, toward its chosen target.
Oh, my. Ashan watched it come, watched the space between them shrink, watched the future unfold before his eyes.
A cold chuckle crystallized in his mind, sharp and bright.
I didn't expect you to gift me this level of publicity.