The heavy door of the studio clicked shut, leaving Kenzii alone in the sterile, white silence of Elias Thorne's gallery. For a moment, he remained motionless, the phantom weight of the sedation still pulling at the corners of his consciousness. But the thrum of the Slaughter System in his mind was louder now, a rhythmic drumming that demanded blood.
"That piece of shit," Kenzii whispered, his voice rasping. He looked down at his wrists, where the heavy-duty steel handcuffs had bitten deep into his skin, leaving raw, purple welts. He took a deep breath, stretching his neck and back, feeling the popping of joints that had been locked in a cross-style position for far too long.
With a low growl, he channeled the darkness into his left hand. The skin of his arm didn't just turn black; it seemed to consume the light around it, flickering with an obsidian, demonic aura. With a sharp, effortless jerk, he flexed his muscles. The reinforced steel of the handcuffs in his wrists and feet snapped like brittle glass, the shards clattering onto the white tiled floor.
Kenzii stood up from the roulette wheel, looking back at the wreckage. The parts where his hands and feet had been bound were scorched, the metal melted and warped as if touched by an industrial torch. He ignored the cold air against his skin—he was still stripped down to his boxer briefs—and began to pace the room.
After looking at the different canvas, he stopped in front of a painting that leaned against a far wall. It was a recreation of 'Flaming June'. Kenzii, an artist himself, felt a wave of nausea mixed with undeniable awe. The detail was haunting; the way the light played off the translucent orange drapery, the delicate curl of the sleeping woman's hair—it was technically perfect, perhaps even more vibrant than the original.
"Did you waste your talent on evil?" Kenzii mused, his fingers hovering just inches from the canvas. "Or did evil allow you to find this talent?" He realized with a shudder that the "model" for this painting hadn't been a paid professional, but a victim whose life had been snuffed out to capture that final, perfect expression of stillness.
Finding a sense of cold, predatory calm, Kenzii walked to the center of the room. He picked up the chair Elias had used, turned it toward the door, and sat down. He crossed his legs, his dark eyes fixed on the entrance, waiting for the artist to return to his masterpiece.
Minutes passed. The sound of a heavy bolt sliding back echoed through the room. Elias Thorne stepped inside, a self-satisfied smirk on his face—a look that vanished instantly when he saw Kenzii sitting there, free and composed, staring him down.
"What took you so long?" Kenzii mocked, a thin, dangerous smile playing on his lips. "Were you too busy worshipping the portrait you made of me?"
Elias stammered, his eyes darting to the shattered, scorched remains of the roulette wheel. "What the... how the fuck did you..."
"If you think you're some terrifying creature because of your sickening methods and your boastful, disgusting murders, you're mistaken," Kenzii said, standing up slowly. He gestured to the horrors on the walls. "You're an idiot, Elias. You wasted a god-given talent on something so utterly worthless."
"How did you escape?" Elias demanded, his voice dropping into a low, murderous register as the studio door hissed shut and locked automatically.
"Simple. I broke them," Kenzii replied, walking toward the older man with predatory grace. He stopped inches from Elias, looking down at him. "Your steel was weak. Did you really think those toys could hold me?"
Kenzii reached out, his hand gripping Elias's chin, forcing the man to look up at him. But the terror he expected wasn't there. Instead, Elias's lips curled into a playful, jagged grin. Kenzii's instincts leaped backward just as Elias whipped a concealed blade from his pocket, the tip whistling through the air.
Kenzii felt a sharp sting on his cheek. He touched the wound, his fingers coming away red.
"Did you really think you could intimidate me, boy?" Elias said, glancing at the blood on his knife. "You were sent here to end me, so I knew you weren't ordinary. Locks like those... they're only a suggestion to weak people." Elias slowly ran his tongue along the flat of the blade, tasting Kenzii's blood. "Type AB+. Rare. Refined. A perfect vintage for my collection."
"You're a fucking psycho," Kenzii spat, his disgust outweighing the pain in his face.
"I am a visionary!" Elias roared. He lunged forward, the knife a silver blur as he swung it repeatedly at Kenzii. Thanks to his experience, the young man managed to weave through the frantic slashes, but the raw power Elias unleashed forced Kenzii to retreat step by step.
Kenzii mirrored every swing of Elias's blade with his own lethal speed. He timed the rhythm of the old man's attacks, occasionally catching Elias's wrist mid-strike to deflect the blade before retaliating with punishing blows to Elias's midsection and face.
However, Elias managed to counter, delivering a heavy kick to Kenzii's stomach. The impact sent Kenzii flying backward, crashing into a table filled with Elias's painting supplies. Jars shattered and tubes burst, drenching Kenzii's bare skin in a chaotic mess of pigments.
"Look at that... those colors look magnificent on you," Elias sneered, his eyes glazed with a manic appreciation for the way the paints blended against Kenzii's skin. "It makes me want to turn you into a living sculpture and display you in my lounge. What do you think?"
Kenzii scowled, his fingers curling around a heavy wooden palette. He flung it at Elias's head, and while the artist easily dodged the projectile, it provided the split-second distraction Kenzii needed. He rotated his body and delivered a devastating forearm smash to the side of Elias's head, sending the man reeling. Kenzii didn't stop there; he followed up with a lightning-fast punch to the gut and a snap-kick to the chest that propelled Elias backward into a table loaded with heavy power tools.
Kenzii's eyes widened and he dove for the floor as Elias grabbed a heavy felling axe from the wreckage. Elias swung the tool in a wide arc, the blade missing Kenzii's head by mere inches. Kenzii could hear the terrifying whistle of the air as the heavy steel passed over him.
Elias continued to swing the iron axe with relentless ferocity, driving Kenzii back until the young man's spine hit the roulette wheel where he had been bound earlier. The wooden structure split down the middle as Elias's axe buried itself deep into the frame.
"Art requires sacrifice, young man!" Elias shouted. The axe was momentarily stuck in the wood, so Elias kicked the roulette wheel toward Kenzii to clear it. Kenzii used the opening to scramble across the floor, his fingers closing around the hilt of a katana that had been lying among the wreckage. He unsheathed it just in time to parry a downward overhead strike from Elias's axe. The blades locked inches from Kenzii's face, the sparks flying as they grappled for dominance. "And it is only right that you pay for art with your life!"
"You don't know the first thing about art," Kenzii countered. Channeling his strength, he pushed back against the weight of the axe. As Elias stumbled, Kenzii swung the katana in a shimmering arc, the tip of the blade slicing across the old man's arm. "Art is about the soul. All you have is a void."
They became a blur of motion. Elias was surprisingly fast for his age, moving with a jagged, unpredictable energy. Kenzii eventually found his opening, landing a powerful kick to Elias's stomach that sent him crashing into the wall where his paintings hung. Elias slid down to the floor, dazed. Kenzii moved in instantly, pinning Elias down with a foot to the chest and pressing the cold steel of the katana against the man's throat. "This is the end for you."
Kenzii prepared to deliver the final blow, but the entire room suddenly plunged into total darkness.
Elias had managed to reach a hidden button on the wall, triggering a complete blackout of the studio. In the confusion, he slipped out from under Kenzii's foot and vanished into the shadows.
Kenzii stood perfectly still, his heart racing as he listened. Then, the silence was shattered by the guttural, mechanical roar of a chainsaw. Relying on his sharpened instincts, Kenzii threw himself to the side just as the whirring teeth of the saw tore through the air exactly where his face had been.
"Hahahaha! Still my advantage!" Elias's voice echoed through the dark. "I have memorized every inch of this room, and with my night-vision goggles, I can see you no matter where you run." Elias laughed—a chilling, confident sound. As a killer himself, he was always prepared, always ensuring he had a plan for every possible turn of events.
"Guess who'll really meet their end tonight," Elias hissed, charging through the darkness with the chainsaw screaming in his hands.